Wildfires can’t always be avoided but ranchers can take steps to mitigate their individual risk and protect their forage resources, livestock and ranch.
“It can take a huge toll on ranchers when they are hit by catastrophic wildfires,” explains Josh Gaskamp.
Gaskamp grew up in central Texas and has been with the Noble Research Institute for nearly 20 years. Currently serving as associate director of outreach and partnerships, his background is in wildlife and range ecology, and he also manages his own ranch.
He says, “In the ranching business, we're in the business of managing or allocating inventory across our operation. And when we say inventory, I mean the forage.”
Forage availability is the primary hit ranchers take from wildfires, depending on the time of year. Spring wildfires are less problematic because forage and feed sources often have time to grow back. Fall and winter fires leave ranchers searching for feed resources and acres to graze.
“If the rancher has to go in and now offset that loss of forage on their ranch with some purchased feed… the demand for those purchased feeds at least locally … goes up as those catastrophic events happen, especially if they're large wildfires,” explains Gaskamp.
Other negative impacts of fires can be shifts in feed and land prices brought on by increased demand, and that doesn’t even touch on the emotional toll of a natural disaster.
The good news is that having wildfire prevention and occurrence plans greatly reduces risk and stress for ranchers.
He says, “Having that plan takes a lot of that anxiety out of the decision that ranchers have to make.”
Wildfire mitigation starts with grazing plans, specifically, thatch control.
“The more fine fuels, which are grasses and things like that … grasses and herbaceous vegetation that we leave around as thatch, the higher risk of catastrophic wildfire.”
Recovery periods impact thatch occurrence greatly. Gaskamp explains that there is a line between adequate recovery and too much recovery for forages. Good soil health and new vegetation will naturally have a higher water content and are less susceptible to fire.
He says, “We don't as ranch managers … want to remove all the forage so that we keep ourselves away from wildfire. But there's a middle ground.”
Proper thatch amounts will vary geographically and across a single ranch, but gray forages indicate oxidation and higher fire risk compared to brown forages that can still be worked into the soil.
“Understanding the areas of your ranch that may be more prone to risk is very important in terms of the grazing management side and using grazing management to mitigate the wildfire,” says Gaskamp.
Identifying risk areas, providing adequate recovery and utilizing all areas of the ranch appropriately are all starting points to a grazing plan that mitigates wildfire.
Ranchers can also fight fire with fire. Prescribed burning is a reliable tool to mitigate fire risk.
Gaskamp explains, “Those freshly burned areas, obviously they grow fresh forage just like a grazed event. They grow fresh forage, they green up, there's less thatch available because it's either burned off or trampled, and if we're talking about livestock grazing, there's less fuel to burn. So, the fuel continuity across that landscape reduces.”
Fire is a natural occurrence that isn’t always bad. It was around long before we moved onto the landscape. However, prescribed burning is a tool that should be used very intentionally.
He says, “Understanding the reasons to use fire, how they impact your business both short and long term, need to go into that decision to burn.”
Visit with ranchers, fire crews and others who are experienced with prescribed burns.
Once a mitigation plan is created, ranchers should also create a plan for if or when a fire does occur.
Similar to a drought plan, know which animals to offload first.
Gaskamp explains, “Understand which animals I need to retain in this operation versus which animals are okay to leave right now.”
Go back to which areas of the ranch are less prone to fire and create plans to move cattle and even share your plan with local fire departments so they know where different access points exist across the ranch.
“Having those local fire departments aware of your plan is not a bad idea. And so that's one thing on my particular operation, although I'm a very, very small operation, my local fire department knows exactly where to go.”
Wildfire mitigation and occurrence plans are valuable not only for private lands but also public lands where ranchers don’t have full control of land use.
“You don't have the control that you would, say, if it was on your private property,” says Gaskamp, “But you still have control of how … you plan those animals to move across that allotment.”
Post-wildfire, remember mother nature has it covered. Forages will return pending rainfall, and the soil will have added fertility from the ash.
“Following fire, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. There's forage coming.”
Listen to the full story on the Cattle Conversations podcast.
