When Wildfire Strikes, Ranchers 'Answer the Call' to Help in Long Road Ahead

In a year of extreme drought and weeks of relentless high winds, wildfires are inevitable. The question isn’t if, it’s when and where.

When Wildfire Strikes

When the blaze blew through southwest Nebraska on Friday, April 22, headlines of evacuation and road closures grew at a rapid rate. Several towns and rural residents along the Road 702 fire were encouraged to leave their homes behind.

It’s not easy for anyone to walk away from everything, but for ranchers, there’s more than just a house to be concerned about. It’s the farm, equipment, feed, supplies and livestock.

“A lot of people were in shock. They just were at the point where they were kind of locked down and trying to figure out what they were going to do,” says nearby rancher, John Odea of Indianola, Neb.

When calls for help started rolling in, John Odea and his son, Jake, hooked up their trailers and started hauling livestock in all directions, helping ranchers evacuate and move cattle.

John recalls moving cattle with fellow cattle producers on Sunday morning.

“It's kind of bizarre loading pairs on your trailers while the National Guard helicopters are flying overhead,” Odea says.

In total, the Road 702 fire burned over 44,000 acres along the Red Willow and Furnas County line of Nebraska and crossed the Kansas border.

Finding Feed

With many hay piles turned to ash, many cattle ranchers in the area needed feed resources.

Odea put out the call Saturday morning, and within hours, hay was on the road. Neighboring ranches in Nebraska, as well as Colorado, Kansas, Ohio and Wyoming have all supported the cause.

It’s been nearly two weeks after the original ask for hay, and John says, “I don't think we've had a day that at least four or five loads weren’t getting dropped off someplace.”

Odea says it’s hard to know exactly how much hay has been donated, but he imagines anywhere between 800 and 1000 ton had made its way to the area.

When Community Matters

The news of this fire stretched far and wide.

When the flames had ceased, Odea and a local feed dealer and long-time resident of southwest Nebraska, Jon Harris, decided to gather the community together. Their plan to rent the Indianola town hall and hold a dessert auction took shape, with the hope of gathering some funds to help local families affected by the fire.

“Maybe we can get a few thousand [dollars] gathered up to buy some fencing materials,” Odea says. “Maybe buy some cubes and some mineral tubs for these guys.”

Taking their idea to social media, donations for the auction started rolling in. Other local entrepreneurs chipped in to help promote and organize the logistics of the event.

Bids were placed from supporters across the U.S.

“We had folks that grew up here and went on to be entrepreneurs in other parts of the country that called in, generated bids and bought in the auction,” Odea says.

Though the auction was held in a town of less than 500 people, church groups, local entrepreneurs and numerous volunteers provided food to feed over 750 people who came to support the cause and raised over $122,000 in fire relief funds.

“The best thing that gets produced in these rural communities is the people because they go on to make a positive impact wherever they go,” Odea says.

The Long Road Ahead

Now that the dust has settled, local farmers and ranchers look at the weeks and months ahead.

Building fence, temporary and permanent, will be important in the coming weeks. Many ranchers in the area depended on multiple paddocks of grazing pastures to rotate cattle throughout the summer, Odea says.

Odea hopes if the area can get some rain in the next few weeks, ranchers might be able to graze their pastures again by late summer.

“It's going to be tough for these guys. There's been some smaller cowherds that have sold out already, and some guys are looking at sending cows to other areas that hopefully have gotten some moisture that had liquidated cows last year,” Odea says. “The week after the fire, there were a lot of cows that left to never return. Especially in Nebraska, this state travels on the back of a cow. I mean, it's a huge, huge loss of economic impact whenever a cow leaves.”

Calf health is another challenge, as many calves experienced smoke inhalation and now live in dry lot conditions during a time of drought.

Farmers in the area also meet the challenge of deciding what to plant that will create some ground cover for the bare soil, Odea says.

“Farmers will try to manage their cash flow to make it through the year, because a lot of them had already spent money on chemical inputs on their crop ground, and now all that ground is burnt bare,” Odea explains. “Planting dryland crops in bare ground is not very good in this area.”

There’s no question the impacts of a wildfire affect families, farms and ranches and the economic stability of many rural areas.

When disaster strikes, the need for community grows.

“I don't know that we did anything more than a lot of the neighbors were doing,” Odea says.

To all the ranchers, farmers, local entrepreneurs, church groups, firefighters, FFA chapters, armed forces personnel and numerous volunteers, thank you for answering the call.