Nothing like a little adversity to test your outdoor skills for the upcoming season.
Friday evening we got a call from the rancher. The day before a fire from a neigboring ranch set his land on fire.
Left my house at 7:00 AM sharp and arrived at the ranch gate 3 1/2 hours later. From the front everything looked fine. Once you hit the first pasture you can immediately tell a substantial amount of land has been burned. The front pasture is one big burn.
Pulling into camp ... what a nightmare. The shelter is burned to the ground. My camper is in ashes ... except for the sink and the oven. You can see in the picture my green lockbox survived, however the contents inside were totally scorched. All my camp tools gone. I did salvage my 2 dutch ovens and fry pans. They are completely covered in melted plastic. I'm hoping I can melt the plastic off in a hot charcoal fire. I hope the melted plastic hasn't ruined the pots.
I walked through the pasture to my stand in the oak tree. The ground is covered in black from all the burning. The big oak is still fine, as is my feeder. What's interesting is the fire burned around my feeder and did no damage. My guess is since there was no grass under the feeder, it didn't burn. I also think that the fire department sprayed water on all our feeders. If this is the case, it was mighty nice from them.
All that prime bedding area is gone. Take a look at the picture I took from my stand the week before this week. It gives a good before and after the fire view.
On my way back to camp (or what's left of camp) I saw some smoke. On the neighbors ranch the fire had restarted. The flames were about 4 feet and the smoke was incredible. I ran back to the racnh house and knocked on the door. His wife called the ranchers who had started the fire. They had a machine that shoots water. Forget what it's called but it's used to wash cattle down. The rancher andI got some wet towels and he and I headed toward the fire.
For the next hour I was a member of the San Saba volunteer fire department. I'm pretty sure if there is a hell it's filled with fire and cactus. What a nightmare trying to stamp out burning cactus with a wet towel. We stopped the fire from spreading. The neighbors came and threw a lot of water on the trees that were still smoldering.
... and that's how I left the place ...
The winds were picking up and I didn't want to spend the night in case more fires started
Still very huntable, unless the fire starts again.
Friday evening we got a call from the rancher. The day before a fire from a neigboring ranch set his land on fire.
Left my house at 7:00 AM sharp and arrived at the ranch gate 3 1/2 hours later. From the front everything looked fine. Once you hit the first pasture you can immediately tell a substantial amount of land has been burned. The front pasture is one big burn.
Pulling into camp ... what a nightmare. The shelter is burned to the ground. My camper is in ashes ... except for the sink and the oven. You can see in the picture my green lockbox survived, however the contents inside were totally scorched. All my camp tools gone. I did salvage my 2 dutch ovens and fry pans. They are completely covered in melted plastic. I'm hoping I can melt the plastic off in a hot charcoal fire. I hope the melted plastic hasn't ruined the pots.
I walked through the pasture to my stand in the oak tree. The ground is covered in black from all the burning. The big oak is still fine, as is my feeder. What's interesting is the fire burned around my feeder and did no damage. My guess is since there was no grass under the feeder, it didn't burn. I also think that the fire department sprayed water on all our feeders. If this is the case, it was mighty nice from them.
All that prime bedding area is gone. Take a look at the picture I took from my stand the week before this week. It gives a good before and after the fire view.
On my way back to camp (or what's left of camp) I saw some smoke. On the neighbors ranch the fire had restarted. The flames were about 4 feet and the smoke was incredible. I ran back to the racnh house and knocked on the door. His wife called the ranchers who had started the fire. They had a machine that shoots water. Forget what it's called but it's used to wash cattle down. The rancher andI got some wet towels and he and I headed toward the fire.
For the next hour I was a member of the San Saba volunteer fire department. I'm pretty sure if there is a hell it's filled with fire and cactus. What a nightmare trying to stamp out burning cactus with a wet towel. We stopped the fire from spreading. The neighbors came and threw a lot of water on the trees that were still smoldering.
... and that's how I left the place ...
The winds were picking up and I didn't want to spend the night in case more fires started
Still very huntable, unless the fire starts again.