When Susan Devick was finally allowed to return to her British Columbia ranch home after forest fires forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, she wasn’t met with damage to her house from fire, but from flood.
When her husband Paul was allowed back to the Heffley Creek ranch Aug. 8 to gather a few more belongings and check the animals, he turned on the sprinklers in an attempt to save the four ranch houses from fire.
Instead, the water trickled off the roof and into the basement.
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“It’s such a mess,” said Susan, who had just been given the all clear on Aug. 11 to return to the ranch.
The Strawberry Creek fire, which raged north of Kamloops, B.C., got within seven kilometers of the home ranch before being brought under control. The McLure fire, which has destroyed 200 sq. kilometres 40 km north of Kamloops near Barriere, touched the north part of their ranch.
Each day Devick’s father-in-law Art, also a crew boss on the fire, would fly over the ranch in a helicopter and guide his son, who was on the ground pushing cattle to different parts of the pasture.
“They had long, long days,” Susan said.
With little rain this spring, much of the time during the fire was spent hauling water to cattle on distant ranges.
“It was imperative we get water to the cattle,” said Susan, who added they were lucky compared to other ranchers. While the Devicks lost some of their grazing land and timber, she believes most of the cattle came through unhurt.
She said the family is taking a pragmatic approach to the loss of grassland.
“The guys are positive. They say it will grow better next year.”
Agnes Jackson, president of the British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association, said it’s too soon to get an exact picture of how much fire damage ranchers have suffered. Only about 30 percent of the fires in B.C. are contained. The rest are still burning out of control on the tinder dry mountainsides.
“We have no good estimate of the cattle that died in the fire,” said Jackson, who lives at Napier Lake, 30 km south of Kamloops.
“It’s just a war zone.”
She said the damage to fences alone will be more than $100,000. In many areas, ranchers unable to get to their cattle opened gates and cut fences hoping cattle would drift to safety in front of the fire. Other fences burned to the ground.
