It was a non-stop adrenaline day, according to San Diego County California rancher John Austel, who describes the time in January 2025 when the Border 2 Fire threatened his ranch and cowherd.
Weather conditions had already created a bad drought year, as October to January brought California the second-driest start to the water year on record.
“It’s green but not really growing by the end of December,” Austel says. “And this year we didn’t have any germination until Feb.15 — or any rain.”
This is often the reality of rangeland ranching, and it’s why Austel has been using targeted and adaptive management since he began his grazing lease in 2014.
“We had just a little over 6.5", and our average is 10" to 12" every year,” he says.
The Austels calve in the fall, typically starting in October and finishing by the end of December.
“We had moms and babies with no real nutrition,” he says. “It was the first time in 11 years on the property I had to buy hay. Body conditions were marginal and even with feeding hay and putting out supplement, the cows weren’t happy.”
On Jan. 23, wildfire broke out in the vacant 20,000-acre BLM allotment south of the ranch that had previously burned in 2017. It was déjà vu.
“I felt like Job in the Bible wondering what else could go wrong,” Austel recalls.
When he went to bed that night, the fire was around 50 acres.
“I wasn’t worried,” he says. “We could see the fire, but CAL Fire was out there.”
Unfortunately, the fire grew to 4,000 acres overnight. The properties are separated by a single, two-land road, which CAL Fire was planning to let the fire burn up to.
At that point, the Austels had to evacuate their 200-plus cows with their calves — some of them under 60 days of age.
“We had to move them two miles away on horseback,” Austel says. “The babies ran back because they couldn’t find their moms. It was just a big cluster. It took me four days to try to get them all paired back up.”
Later that same day, after finally sitting down and eating half of a sandwich, Austel got a call to to move his yearlings out of a pasture on the other side of the road. Luckily, those cattle were trained.
“This time, we just grabbed a bale of hay and called them — and thank God they all came running out of the canyon,” he says. “We ran them down the highway that was closed with CHP [California Highway Patrol] and CAL FIRE following them with their lights on, down to a field that we had already grazed where there was very little chance of wildfire action.”
The Austels used their Ag Pass, which allows ranchers to bypass roadblocks and access ranch property to evacuate livestock. Austel recalls the Bear Fire in northern California that took out Dave Daley’s permitted forest lands and cattle herd, and how having access during these natural disasters is so important.
“Our trucks were all marked with our brands on the door to make sure they knew who was on the property,” Austel says. “We had pretty much had carte blanche to do anything and everything we needed to do to get everything out of there.”
While some of the calves ended up weaning early and some cows nursed multiple calves, nothing was permanently harmed. Austel notes his conception rates were down, but he was able to keep young replacements. Calves are typically sold mid-May, but the fire delayed their sale well in June. In addition, the Austels had stockpiled about 1,200 acres from the two previous years as reserve feed, which was also saved from the fire.
Austel continues to believe in targeted grazing and adaptive management to fit the landscape.
“I didn’t want to have a drought situation,” Austel says. “I’d rather not have to test our wildfire grazing plan this way. But it worked. There was no vegetation around the edge of this property.”
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