September 9, 2021 • 36 mins
Perspectives on what life is like in some of Nevada’s high fire hazard areas. Featuring interviews with Jon Griggs, ranch manager at Maggie Creek Ranch in Elko, Nevada; and Jole Rector and Todd Ballowe, Washoe County residents living in a high fire hazard area.
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Episode Transcript
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Megan Kay (00:19):
Welcome to the living with fire Podcast, where we
share stories and resources tohelp you live more safely with
wildfire. Hi, I'm Megan Kay,your host and outreach
coordinator for the living fireprogram. On this episode, I got
the opportunity to talk with JonGriggs about his experiences
with wildfire as manager ofMaggie Creek Ranch in Elko. And
(00:41):
later on, I was able to talk toJulie Rector and Todd Ballow
about what they do to deal withwildfire living in a high fire
hazard area. Enjoy theinterview,
I'm Megan Kay, the outreachcoordinator for the living fire
program. And I'm joined by JonGriggs from Maggie Creek Ranch.
(01:04):
Welcome, john.
Jon Griggs (01:04):
Hey, thank you.
Great to be with you.
Jordan Buxton (01:06):
So I did a little research but if you do you mind
just kind of like giving us alittle background on Maggie
Creek Ranch.
Jon Griggs (01:12):
Yeah, sure. So So Maggie Creek Ranch is is
reasonably large cow calf and,and stocker beef operation and
poco county sits kind of betweenElko and Carlin Nevada. And it's
about 200,000 acres of publicand private land that we that we
graze on, it's it's owned by afamily, the families owned it
(01:34):
since 1975. So what is it at 46years maybe, and I'm the hiring
manager here, and I've beenhired. I've been the hiring
manager for 23 years now of the30 years that I've worked here.
Megan Kay (01:48):
Wow. So you, you basically were leader from the
beginning as well, quite quite abit of a name. What are you
guys? How familiar familiar areyou guys with the wildfire risk
in your area, I imagine you workpretty closely. Because you also
graze on public land, and youwork pretty closely with land
managers and things like that.
Jon Griggs (02:08):
So what you're seeing is multiple fires that
range in size from hundreds ofacres to 1000s of acres to to at
least one fire, that's 100,000plus acres there. So that's,
that's what we've experienced infire in the last 20 years,
multiple fires that in someareas have burned multiple
(02:32):
times. And you know, when you'relooking at that, you're you're
thinking probably 70% of that200,000 acres has burned at one
time or another.
Megan Kay (02:45):
And that's just in the time that you've been there.
Correct.
Jon Griggs (02:48):
Yep, acquainted one of those fires in 2007 March
fire, it was about a 9000 acrefire, but it burned over
compounds of the ranch compoundsof the headquarters. So in that
fire, we lost a house thatburned to the ground, we lost
another house that burnedsignificantly that we had to
(03:08):
destroy, we lost an officebuilding, other other
outbuildings and another housethat was damaged significantly.
So a lot of experience withfire. Besides buildings that
we've lost, we've lost cattle,which is also painful. We've
we've put ourselves at risk infighting fires and trying to
trying to move cattle away fromfrom fire and fighting fires
(03:33):
ourselves. So yeah, we've got alot of history here. So
Megan Kay (03:37):
with your with your experience, what kind of like
right now what is what kind ofpreparation do you guys do for
the wildfire season? the dryseason? What does that look like
on the ranch?
Jon Griggs (03:47):
Well, there's, there's a lot of thought to it.
So there's there's thought aboutabout keeping yourself safe,
right? And you're in where youlive in your houses and things
like that. And then there'sthoughts about keeping your
cattle safe. And then there'sthoughts about protecting your
factory and that the rangelandsthat our cattle around is our
(04:08):
factory. And when, when thatburns, it's yours before it's
back in production, if ever soit scales up in what our
thoughts are so and keep inourselves, our families in our
in our place, we live safe. Thething that we learned in that
2007 fire was that in a winddriven event, it's really pretty
(04:29):
tough to keep wood structuresafe. I mean, you think that you
have a you have a green areathat's defensible. You think
that rose will help you defendit, you think that a lack of
trees and you know, just justsagebrush is more defensible
than then places that wetraditionally think burn like,
you know, you might think of ahouse or a cabin that's in the
(04:50):
middle of a forest somewhere isis really fire prone and arcane.
You know, that wasn't our case.
We had very minimal big trees.
You know, we had areas Wethought were really defensible
that turned out in a wind drivenevent or not.
Megan Kay (05:04):
Yeah because of the structural ignitability of wood
house so have you have you guysdone any work to kind of you
know retrofit and shore up thosestructures maybe putting a metal
roof you know things like that
Jon Griggs (05:21):
every chance every chance we get to re roof a
building that will be a steelroof because that's for us
that's number one. That's youknow, asphalt shingles are
certainly are certainly morefire resistant than than a cedar
shake roof, but nothing is asgood as steel and so that's,
that's number one. Not thenumber two thought is is is
(05:42):
where a house sits in relationto rangelands. raisins are
obviously more at risk than airrigated meadow, or, you know,
a road area or things like that.
So buildings that are closer torangelands get a weather eye
towards being fire resistant,more so than buildings that sit
in the middle of a irrigatedmeadow. And can we we do kind of
try to retrofit or at leastexpand fireproof areas or fire
(06:06):
resistant areas around thoseplaces. More so than like that
wet Meadow area.
Megan Kay (06:14):
Before you mentioned factory. Do you mind explaining
that to me? Like what are youtalking about? Like the just the
the grass that the cows feed onand everything?
Jon Griggs (06:24):
Yes, exactly. So are are in the business sense of a
cattle ranch. The cows that werun are the tool that make our
product cows make calves that wesell. The factory space is our
rangelands, that produces grassand forage that our cows need to
exist. You know, we may not losecows to a fire. But if we lose,
(06:46):
if we lose the grass that theyconsume, and we lose the ability
to produce that grass insubsequent years after the fire,
then we really struggled to stayin business. And that's that's a
common thread across branches inNevada.
Megan Kay (07:01):
So what kind of projects do you do in the range
land to try to protect thatfactory.
Jon Griggs (07:08):
So we think of fire in three phases before, during
and after, before the fire rightnow, the biggest single
contributing factor to largeuncontrolled fires in our area
and maybe everywhere in the Westis the invasive annual
cheatgrass, cheatgrass. When itcures ignites like gasoline, it
makes the actual roof likegasoline does and it makes it
(07:31):
makes fires uncontrollable in myin my experience, so so we're
thinking about cheatgrass rightnow, we're just getting to,
we're just getting kind of agreen hue to rangelands in my
area, South slopes are startingto green up and a lot of that
green up is cheap grass. Andwe're thinking about
concentrating our cows on that,because when the grass is green,
(07:55):
it's a desired forage for ourcows. And it's frankly, fairly
decent forage, and quality ishigh in protein, and it comes
earlier than than the desirednative plants that that we like
out there. So if we can campsort of Camp our cows on cheap
grass, make them eat that sothat, that cheap grass doesn't
(08:16):
reproduce. In theory, we haveless of it. And in practice, you
know, by by reducing this year'scrop that's less to burn. So we
do that kind of in two ways. Wedo that sort of passively in
that, right now our cows arecalving in areas that are
cheatgrass prone, and we do itactively. And then we identify,
(08:38):
like, like we have a targetedgrazing area right now that
that's a steady, it's a steadyarea, but it's but it's working
in practice, targeted grazingarea that we will put cows in a
fence strip, and we will holdthem water with the thought that
you know, it's kind of thenuclear option. And we're not
really worried about about anative component in that area.
(08:59):
What we're trying to do is makedefensible space. We're trying
to make a fire break that firemanagers can use to control
fire. So So those are two thingsthat we're doing before fire to
try to mitigate risk of firethis coming season.
Megan Kay (09:14):
Do you guys do any besides targeted grazing, which
I mean makes total sense becauseyou have all these cows? Do you
do any other control methodslike prescribed burning, or? I
mean, I'd imagine mastication isnot a huge option but things
like that.
Jon Griggs (09:32):
We have done some control burning but we feel like
in our area in the in the CIgrass era controlled burning is
kind of off the table and it'sreally tough to keep cheatgrass
out of a burned area even evenreceiving post fire because not
a guaranteed success that thatwill keep t grass out of the
equation. So for us, for themost part controlled burn is off
(09:55):
the table. We haven't donemowings ourselves but our agency
part Your Bureau of LandManagement has done some in our
area that helps. But we, weprefer to use cattle to do that
as opposed to mechanizedequipment. And then really
that's before fire. That's kindof it for us.
Megan Kay (10:12):
I mean, it's it's a, you're right, you bring up a
good point, it's a constantbattle, like you try to burn to
get rid of the fuel, but thenyou basically are creating a
vacuum for native or forinvasive species to come in and
kind of take in takeover. Andespecially with such a large
area to manage doesn't seem
Jon Griggs (10:32):
like that would work. Well. The other thing too
is, is last time we did acontrol burn it was to try to
mitigate big stands of decadentsagebrush that were really kind
of crowding out everything elseand and were a massive fuel load
that we thought we could burn inJanuary, we had an open January
one year that was fairly dry,and we thought it would be good
time to try to build somemosaics into that big standard
(10:54):
decadence sage, we're talkingabout maybe 300 acres. That fire
about got away from us inJanuary and was a tense time and
so that kind of put the lid onit for us to think about it.
Control burn.
Megan Kay (11:12):
evacuations are stressful. Often communities
aren't given much notice beforeit's time to leave their homes.
Prepare for evacuation now.
Create an evacuation plan andpack a go bag with at least
three days of essentials forevery member of your family,
including pets, go to livingwith fire calm slash prepared
for more information.
(11:37):
Do you mind if we transition tokind of what looks like during a
fire? How do you go aboutkeeping everyone safe and even
possibly evacuating during afire?
Jon Griggs (11:46):
We in Elko County, we have a very robust volunteer
firefighter system. We're a partof that we have an elk county
brush truck on the ranch that weuse on us and our neighbors. And
then we have equipment of ourown. A water truck and a dozer
that we use. With our agencypartners, we really focused on
(12:07):
initial attack keeping spiresmall and catching them before
they before they get big thatthat's probably the first thing
97 out of 100 times probably inin our area that is successful,
we keep fires to the initialattack phase 10s of acres as
opposed to a hundreds of acres.
And that's really the goal,three out of 100 times we we do
not succeed, fires go big and gohundreds to 1000s of acres. What
(12:30):
we need to think about therefirst, we focus on initial
attack. And that really involvespeople on the ranch that are
trained and fight fire. And wedon't really involve other folks
on the ranch that are not. Sothen when we transition to big
fires, then we start thinkingabout about the community at
large, not just not just firefolks on the ranch. So So the
(12:52):
thing that your listeners couldtake for me. And what I would
want everybody to think about isthat when fires go big in your
community, is the time to startthinking about what your
personal response is going to bewhat your personal setup looks
like what your house looks like,what you care about that is at
risk, you know, livestock, pets,family, houses, buildings, those
(13:15):
kinds of things. And I say thisin a way to say that when
there's a smoke column in yourarea, that's the time to think
about what your response isgoing to be. Because by the time
that you recognize that fire isa threat to you, it's too late
to think about that.
Megan Kay (13:31):
And that's kind of why we exist as we're trying to
give people resources, knowledgeand empower them to live more
safely.
Jon Griggs (13:39):
That's what I really appreciate about your efforts.
Megan Kay (13:42):
When you have all of this all of these personnel and
you know, cattle to to lookafter, what kind of resources
besides your personal resources?
Do you call upon Dr. There? Iffor some reason you would have
to get like, you'd have to movecattle really fast? Is there
like a network of people withtrailers? Or do you have to
(14:04):
build that, for us, we
Jon Griggs (14:07):
almost have to triage our livestock in
arrangement environment, we knowthat fire moves so fast that
it's not safe for us to be ahorseback in front of a fire. We
don't do that, that kind of tiesinto that notion of there's fire
in your area, you need to makeplans before you're at risk.
Megan Kay (14:26):
So you shouldn't even be in a position where you're
saying you have to make thatsplit second decision, right.
Jon Griggs (14:31):
So that upfront plan would be making sure cows can't
get trapped, you know, gatesopen where they need to be open
and cows in my experience anywayto do a fair job of getting out
of the way when they can so yougot to be able to make sure that
they can I hate that triagethought but horses are more
valuable to us than cattle. Sowe definitely want to get those
(14:53):
out of the way and you knowthings things like that you're
thinking about things like that.
And you may you may call uponNeighbors get to bring vehicles
to help you with that,
Megan Kay (15:04):
but emphasize preparing early, so you don't
ever have to be in thatposition. So now I have a good
idea of what happens during afire. It can be scary.
Absolutely. Yep. Having beenthrough some major fires,
especially the one you talkedabout in 2007. I think you
already touched upon it, but totwo parts one part, do you what
(15:26):
have you learned from thoseevents? And do you have any
mitigation plans this year,like, Are there any big projects
that you're working on that youkind of chip away year after
year to make the ranch safer.
And then also, if you have anytips for for other ranchers or
just get people in people in thecommunity at large,
Jon Griggs (15:47):
the biggest thing I learned that I want listeners
know about the drum that you'rebeating, I lived in that you can
think that you're prepared. Butyou need to think bigger than
what you're thinking. We thoughtwe were prepared for the fire we
experienced in 2007. We werevery experienced with fire prior
to that. And we were taught avery painful lesson. I pray and
(16:09):
hope that nobody ever lives thatlesson again. And so the
preparations you're making, youknow, when you look at your
property, and you look at yourlivestock, and you look at where
you live, think bigger. Anotherthing to think about is make
relationships now, so whetheryou're you're a homeowner in a
somewhat have at risk area, oryou're a rancher on rangelands,
(16:31):
or, or any combination of thosethings, make relationships now,
you know, you don't have to be avolunteer firefighter, but you
can know who those folks are.
And you can know your your firemanagers in your area. And you
can have those relationships sothat when things are really bad,
you can know who to talk to, andyou can know how to get
(16:51):
information, and you can knowhow to make plans, you can have
answers when you need them. Andthat's that's a really big
thing. You know, I don't I don'treally have ongoing on the
ground, year to year projects,other than what we're trying to
do for fuels mitigation. But onething I do year to year is
maintain relationships with withfire agency folks and land
(17:13):
management agency folks thatdeal with before, during and
after fire and you can be aresource to them, as opposed to
put it bluntly, somebody thatthey will have to deal with that
doesn't know that which whichtakes away from their effort.
That's a pretty big deal to me.
Well said,
Jordan Buxton (17:32):
Where would wildfire rank on the risk for,
you know, a cattle ranch?
Because I imagine there are aplethora of threats that you
have to deal with, you know, ona daily and weekly basis. But
wildfire, it sounds like it, ithas the potential to destroy
large, large portions of youryour grazing land, which is a
huge threat to yourprofitability. So where would
(17:55):
you say it ranks?
Jon Griggs (18:01):
Think about it and that sort of metaphor I'm using
with factory So, so so thinkabout it as a as a big box
store? is is is the shoplifteryour biggest number one threat,
you know, cattle rustling isalive and well we we still brand
our cattle to identify them toto mitigate that to some extent,
(18:22):
but burning our factory burningthat big box store is our number
one threat, you know, unlike thebig box store it it can to some
extent rebuild itself. But thatthat could take years panic, you
know, if native range landscomes back as a cheatgrass
(18:44):
monoculture, then we've lost alot. And, and not only we lost a
lot, we're at risk for losing alot year after year. Right. Now,
the other thing about the otherthing about fire to me is that
as a ranch manager as a rancheris it's, it's a big, big thing
(19:04):
to me and that it's really beenhard to be proactive. For me
feels like you know, when I showyou that 70 80% of this ranch
has burned in the last 20 years,I've had a hard time clearly of
being proactive to that it feelslike I'm always reacted to that.
(19:25):
Or you know, it seems likewhenever we get ahead or you
know, or trying to try to dothings to get ahead and then we
torch off another 20,000 acresand and I have to react to that
and I have to find a place forthose cows or or you know find a
way to keep myself and my my coworkers employed without the
(19:47):
factory to support our calories.
So yeah, long answer to saynumber one
Megan Kay (20:00):
84% of wildfires nationwide are caused by people.
If you're planning on headingout and enjoying public lands,
visit Nevada fire info.org andlearn how you can recreate
responsibly and do your part toprevent wildfires.
Todd Ballowe (20:19):
I'm Todd Ballowe
Jole Rector (20:20):
and I'm Jole Rector.
Megan Kay (20:25):
The reason that I wanted to reach you guys I
wanted to talk to you for thispodcast is, you know, I follow
you on Instagram, Joey, and youposted this past summer, summer
20. about all the wildfires thathad come close to your house,
for example, the post thatreally resonated with me is in
October, you made a post and yousaid that there have been eight
(20:47):
wildfires within five miles ofyour home. And that just sounds
very stressful
Todd Ballowe (20:55):
is either five or six out of those eight, we could
actually see open flames.
Megan Kay (20:59):
And now some of those photos that you shared were
intense. Just that's that's thefeeling that I got from them. So
I was wondering, could you guysjust describe what kind of
effect that had on your, yourdaily life? And yeah, just in
your own words, kind of tell uswhat it was like.
Todd Ballowe (21:17):
It was it was a it was an interesting summer
because as more and more fireskept popping up nearby us, I
would get into this habit ofjust when I would go outside of
just checking the horizon andthe nearby areas to see if there
is any smoke in the air or openflames that we could see. Or one
(21:40):
of the later ones. I was workingat my desk and my computer
powered off. I went, Oh, thatkind of felt like a transformer
blew. So I walked outside. Andsure enough, one right across
the highway from us have blownand there was a fire going. And
you just besides being ready togo, we things packed so we could
(22:00):
get out if we needed to againquickly. There was a lot of Oh,
not again. Kind of frustrationthat would build up the just, it
was hard to believe that andthere was there was already one
this year. It wasn't abrushfire. It was um, I think
was an abandoned car. And that'sCory that's not too far from us.
(22:21):
But in January, we saw smokegoing up in there and we're
going already it's already justbarely starting 2021 and two
Here we go again, although wehave never been in any danger
from that. It's just the mentalstate you get to be in have been
prepared and also finding itkind of tedious in a way.
Megan Kay (22:47):
So it sounds like you guys always have your backpack
now. Always have that that gokit and that emergency bag
Jole Rector (22:53):
in the summertime.
Yeah, in the winter time weunpack and live in the house.
But yeah, it's summertime at thepeak of fire season we have we
have suitcases, basically livingin the bedroom. Or at least we
did last summer.
Megan Kay (23:09):
How does that compare to? I mean, because you said
you've been there since 2012.
Usually like how did last yearcompared to other seasons that
you've lived through up there?
Jole Rector (23:19):
Well, fire seasons are generally pretty frightening
out here. When I was here beforeTodd moved in. There was one
fire that was started by ahomeless person living at the
bottom of our neighborhood downin a ravine and he started a
fire trying to goodness knowswhat cook dinner or something
along those lines. And but thatdidn't get out of hand and
(23:41):
honestly the fire that camethrough the big fire that has
put our home in a sea of burnsGar
Megan Kay (23:49):
what fire was that was at the povo fire or
Jole Rector (23:52):
that was the Anderson acres fire. It was July
23 2020 and you know we hadalready I think this was like
our fifth fourth fire of theseason. Something like that
because our neighbors started afire in their yard just you know
cutting down the grass to tryand maintain for fire season and
(24:15):
fire started fortunately theygot he got that out really quick
but Todd was on it he was readyto run over and go help put it
out as necessary. So that wasour first fire of the season lat
and then we had the Provo billfire frequency which fortunately
we're on the leeway side so thatyou know the wind was pushing it
(24:39):
away from us although even asthe wind pushes a fire away it's
still slowly expands thatborder. On the windward side, we
were inside, whatever.
Megan Kay (24:50):
So what was it during those fires Did you guys have to
evacuate at all.
Jole Rector (24:57):
We definitely evacuated for the Anderson acre
Fire because I was looking, Iwas doing something over the
sink in the kitchen and lookingout the window above the kitchen
sink and soft flames rising upat the bottom of the
neighborhood. And we've got alittle hill across on the other
side of the freeway from us. Andand the flame started in was
(25:23):
going two thirds of the way upthat up that hill from our view.
And it was like, Oh my gosh,what do we do? And finally, I
just failed out in the house.
I'm like, get the dogs get thekid and we need to get out of
here. We had no bags. No. Wedidn't even have pull ups for
the kid. Or shoes. We just gotlike, okay, phone, computer
(25:46):
necessary things that, again, weneed for work and just getting
around in the world that presentday world and get out. So we had
to evacuate in six minutes. Wedidn't even really know what
were we were going to do. Wecalled our friends that live
over in sparks. And they're in ahigh fire area to you know, out
(26:06):
there. But Los Altos area, andthose little hills over there.
And but we went over there andand then pod went back first to
see if the evacuation order hadbeen lifted. But, you know, we
drove away from the housethinking we're homeless.
Todd Ballowe (26:26):
There was a wall of flame heading towards our
house that we had already hitthe road on the way out. And I
from what our neighbors way outof the neighborhood sorry, time
It made us made it through ourfence and about 1212 minutes
from where it started.
Megan Kay (26:46):
Where did it start?
Like in relation to you was veryclose to you know, it was about
a quarter of a mile away? Yeah,it's even like an eighth of a
mile. It was so you didn'treally it's not like something
you could see the flames comingover the hills. It was right,
right. Right in your backyard.
And then it sounds like becauseyou guys are so prepared. Now it
sounds like maybe was that theincident that made you think
(27:10):
that you know, we need to haveour bags packed.
Jole Rector (27:13):
Yeah. And then Todd has done a lot of I we both kind
of go team work at it. I reallywork on the gardens around the
house. And Todd has put ingravel paths. And we've both
been diligent over the years tocut down sagebrush on the
property because this house wasa foreclosure. And I feel like a
(27:33):
lot of people in our age bracketare buying foreclosures, because
that's what we can afford. Andwe're slowly fixing them up as
as we get the means to do so.
And so that's exactly what thishouse is. And this property is,
you might even remember, I don'tknow if you were up there that
season in 2012. When I when Igot
Megan Kay (27:53):
it, I remember when you were when you bought it. I
never went out to the house,though. But the But yeah, I was
we were working together at thattime.
Jole Rector (28:02):
The the whole property looked exactly like
your background there justsagebrush all around the house.
You know, if if there would havebeen a fire to the extent of the
Anderson acres fire back in2012, or two, you know, through
2000, probably all the waythrough 2015, then this house
(28:22):
would have gone up just inflames and been done.
Yeah. So in, in general, whatwould you say is the overall
kind of vibe of the community interms of like, Are your
neighbors? Are they active andtrying to remove? You know, the
sagebrush around their homes andinstall more rock and, and, and
(28:45):
gravel? Is there kind ofcommunity wide efforts? Or do
you feel like everyone's kind ofdoing their own thing and not
really kind of working out theneighborhood together on it?
Todd Ballowe (28:56):
I don't know that we necessarily work together as
neighborhood, Mommy, mainlybecause there's only what the 12
or 14 homes in the neighborhood,okay. And they're all on larger
parcels, like an acre or more.
And a lot of them are on two orthree. So but everybody does
maintain that we don't talkabout it. So we don't have like
(29:16):
a game plan as a community. Buteveryone, for the most part
maintains their own property andkeeps it clear and keeps the
grass mowed we're where that'swhere you can do that safely and
keeps the sagebrush pulled outas best as possible, our
neighbor across the street afterthat fire to Anderson acres
because had it jumped the roadthat we're on a long view, there
(29:41):
was quite a bit of sagebrush orbitterbrush right along the road
that could have caught fire andthen that home could have gone
down, potentially, but they'vesince cut that all down.
Megan Kay (29:56):
When you moved in Joey, were you aware? I mean,
You know, wildfires are scary,we have them in this area, but
were you like totally aware ofthe risk of the wildfire risk up
there,
Jole Rector (30:06):
I knew high fire zone. So you know, I'd heard
these phrases put out there. Andyou know, when I first got in
here, because we are literallyour next door neighbor is
volunteer fire department. Andat that time, they were having
regular Wednesday meetings wherethey would go over and the
(30:27):
volunteers would sit down andhave a meeting. And at some
point, I think I wascommunicating with them because
you know how I am I like to goup and say hi to everybody and
meet all the people and interactand socialize and flap my lips,
because I'm a talker. And andthey were like, you need to you
need to put defensible spacearound that house. And so I was
(30:51):
working nights as a blackjackdealer at GSR and, and so my
system was I would work on theweekends and then I would get up
and go out and fill my mydumpster with as much sagebrush
as I could pack in there. And sothat would be my Wednesday
(31:13):
routine, I would get up, go cutdown sagebrush fill up the trash
can and take it up, because theypicked up our trash late at that
point. And, and then I hadsomeone come over and help me
just do a big cut down ofsagebrush. And so the defensible
space has been slow. And onething that I would that I would
(31:36):
think for listeners is to, youknow, be aware and make the
changes necessary. But try notto overwhelm yourself, you know,
if you cut down one sage brush,or one rabbit brush, and that's
that much more space that you'vejust opened up to not literally
be a torch going.
Megan Kay (31:58):
Yeah, I think a lot of people get overwhelmed,
because we give all thesedefensible space
recommendations, and they'relike, I can't do all of this.
And then maybe they just don'tstart. And yeah, just you're
absolutely right, just removingone bush at a time will reduce
the risk. For sure.
Jole Rector (32:16):
Yeah, and then going from there, because once
you start putting, I don't know,I've been thinking about entropy
a lot, you know, because we'reall living in our households.
And so there's a certain amountof energy that's cycling through
the household. And you canalways, you know, if you put
energy in one direction withwithin the system, the closed
system, then it's going to beconducive to continue that
(32:41):
within the system. And so youknow, if you cut down one
sagebrush, then it's going toopen up space for you to see
what else what you know, whatneeds to be done from there. And
then you, you take the nextstep, and then your next step
will be presented to you. Andso, you know, it is a slow
process, but it does gainmomentum, as you as you work
(33:02):
with it.
Megan Kay (33:03):
What have you. What have you guys learned with like
creating your defensible spaceand working on your house? And
what what do you what are youplanning on doing this year to
kind of prepare for wildfire?
Well,
Todd Ballowe (33:17):
definitely one of the things we learned is that
the gravel works great and thatif it had been windier, our
outcome might not have been thesame. So we're there's actually
some of the gravel paths thatare a little bit further away
from the house. There are aboutfour feet wide. And we're
(33:38):
probably going to expand thoseby a couple of feet to try and
keep it from even getting thatclose to the house and also
clearing out around the fencebecause a lot of the our fence
was held up with wooden postsand those are all gone and so
it's because they're burned nowthey were they got destroyed.
(34:01):
And then of course there'sthere's a metal post hoping it
holding it up as well. So it'sstill standing but the wooden
posts are all gone. And it'sgood to keep that area clean
too. And it's so it's not justyour house, it's it's avenues
towards your house. There's thefrontage along our road. That's
(34:22):
a an easement. It's nottechnically our property but I
make sure I keep that allcleaned down with the grass
because we have a pretty largeWild Rose patch that it's nearly
impossible to clean out the deadwild girls out there because the
thorns and if that guy that gothit by a fire it would be pretty
(34:43):
crazy the the damage it couldpotentially do that's far from
our house and we have a lot ofdefensible space between us and
them.
Megan Kay (34:50):
So you guys are I mean I feel like he has already
shared some great tips forlisteners. But is there anything
else that you want to shareanything that comes to mind?
Jole Rector (34:58):
You know when it comes down to it, your house and
your material belongings are notimportant. your health, your
safety. That's what's important.
So pack up, get your animals,get your kids make sure that
everybody's safe and just letthe firefighters do their work.
Because if you stay behind in anevacuation and they have to come
(35:20):
in and use the area around youto manage a fire, if people are
still in their homes andrefusing to evacuate, which we
do have a lot of neighbors inthe neighborhood that are guilty
of that, then it doesn't allowthe firefighters to do the work
that they need to do because nowthey're focusing on your safety
rather than working with thefire. And so I think that's
(35:41):
really important is just just gosomewhere safe. If you're in a
really sketchy situation, justpack up, get out of there, go
somewhere safe and do whateverit is that it can help you calm
down.
Megan Kay (36:03):
Thank you for listening to the living with
fire podcast You can find morestories about wildfire and other
resources at living with firecalm. The Living fire program is
funded by the University ofNevada, Reno extension, Nevada
Division of Forestry Bureau ofLand Management and the United
States Forest Service.
Welcome to the living with fire Podcast, where we
share stories and resources tohelp you live more safely with
wildfire. Hi, I'm Megan Kay,your host and outreach
coordinator for the living fireprogram. On this episode, I got
the opportunity to talk with JonGriggs about his experiences
with wildfire as manager ofMaggie Creek Ranch in Elko. And
(00:41):
later on, I was able to talk toJulie Rector and Todd Ballow
about what they do to deal withwildfire living in a high fire
hazard area. Enjoy theinterview,
I'm Megan Kay, the outreachcoordinator for the living fire
program. And I'm joined by JonGriggs from Maggie Creek Ranch.
(01:04):
Welcome, john.
Jon Griggs (01:04):
Hey, thank you.
Great to be with you.
Jordan Buxton (01:06):
So I did a little research but if you do you mind
just kind of like giving us alittle background on Maggie
Creek Ranch.
Jon Griggs (01:12):
Yeah, sure. So So Maggie Creek Ranch is is
reasonably large cow calf and,and stocker beef operation and
poco county sits kind of betweenElko and Carlin Nevada. And it's
about 200,000 acres of publicand private land that we that we
graze on, it's it's owned by afamily, the families owned it
(01:34):
since 1975. So what is it at 46years maybe, and I'm the hiring
manager here, and I've beenhired. I've been the hiring
manager for 23 years now of the30 years that I've worked here.
Megan Kay (01:48):
Wow. So you, you basically were leader from the
beginning as well, quite quite abit of a name. What are you
guys? How familiar familiar areyou guys with the wildfire risk
in your area, I imagine you workpretty closely. Because you also
graze on public land, and youwork pretty closely with land
managers and things like that.
Jon Griggs (02:08):
So what you're seeing is multiple fires that
range in size from hundreds ofacres to 1000s of acres to to at
least one fire, that's 100,000plus acres there. So that's,
that's what we've experienced infire in the last 20 years,
multiple fires that in someareas have burned multiple
(02:32):
times. And you know, when you'relooking at that, you're you're
thinking probably 70% of that200,000 acres has burned at one
time or another.
Megan Kay (02:45):
And that's just in the time that you've been there.
Correct.
Jon Griggs (02:48):
Yep, acquainted one of those fires in 2007 March
fire, it was about a 9000 acrefire, but it burned over
compounds of the ranch compoundsof the headquarters. So in that
fire, we lost a house thatburned to the ground, we lost
another house that burnedsignificantly that we had to
(03:08):
destroy, we lost an officebuilding, other other
outbuildings and another housethat was damaged significantly.
So a lot of experience withfire. Besides buildings that
we've lost, we've lost cattle,which is also painful. We've
we've put ourselves at risk infighting fires and trying to
trying to move cattle away fromfrom fire and fighting fires
(03:33):
ourselves. So yeah, we've got alot of history here. So
Megan Kay (03:37):
with your with your experience, what kind of like
right now what is what kind ofpreparation do you guys do for
the wildfire season? the dryseason? What does that look like
on the ranch?
Jon Griggs (03:47):
Well, there's, there's a lot of thought to it.
So there's there's thought aboutabout keeping yourself safe,
right? And you're in where youlive in your houses and things
like that. And then there'sthoughts about keeping your
cattle safe. And then there'sthoughts about protecting your
factory and that the rangelandsthat our cattle around is our
(04:08):
factory. And when, when thatburns, it's yours before it's
back in production, if ever soit scales up in what our
thoughts are so and keep inourselves, our families in our
in our place, we live safe. Thething that we learned in that
2007 fire was that in a winddriven event, it's really pretty
(04:29):
tough to keep wood structuresafe. I mean, you think that you
have a you have a green areathat's defensible. You think
that rose will help you defendit, you think that a lack of
trees and you know, just justsagebrush is more defensible
than then places that wetraditionally think burn like,
you know, you might think of ahouse or a cabin that's in the
(04:50):
middle of a forest somewhere isis really fire prone and arcane.
You know, that wasn't our case.
We had very minimal big trees.
You know, we had areas Wethought were really defensible
that turned out in a wind drivenevent or not.
Megan Kay (05:04):
Yeah because of the structural ignitability of wood
house so have you have you guysdone any work to kind of you
know retrofit and shore up thosestructures maybe putting a metal
roof you know things like that
Jon Griggs (05:21):
every chance every chance we get to re roof a
building that will be a steelroof because that's for us
that's number one. That's youknow, asphalt shingles are
certainly are certainly morefire resistant than than a cedar
shake roof, but nothing is asgood as steel and so that's,
that's number one. Not thenumber two thought is is is
(05:42):
where a house sits in relationto rangelands. raisins are
obviously more at risk than airrigated meadow, or, you know,
a road area or things like that.
So buildings that are closer torangelands get a weather eye
towards being fire resistant,more so than buildings that sit
in the middle of a irrigatedmeadow. And can we we do kind of
try to retrofit or at leastexpand fireproof areas or fire
(06:06):
resistant areas around thoseplaces. More so than like that
wet Meadow area.
Megan Kay (06:14):
Before you mentioned factory. Do you mind explaining
that to me? Like what are youtalking about? Like the just the
the grass that the cows feed onand everything?
Jon Griggs (06:24):
Yes, exactly. So are are in the business sense of a
cattle ranch. The cows that werun are the tool that make our
product cows make calves that wesell. The factory space is our
rangelands, that produces grassand forage that our cows need to
exist. You know, we may not losecows to a fire. But if we lose,
(06:46):
if we lose the grass that theyconsume, and we lose the ability
to produce that grass insubsequent years after the fire,
then we really struggled to stayin business. And that's that's a
common thread across branches inNevada.
Megan Kay (07:01):
So what kind of projects do you do in the range
land to try to protect thatfactory.
Jon Griggs (07:08):
So we think of fire in three phases before, during
and after, before the fire rightnow, the biggest single
contributing factor to largeuncontrolled fires in our area
and maybe everywhere in the Westis the invasive annual
cheatgrass, cheatgrass. When itcures ignites like gasoline, it
makes the actual roof likegasoline does and it makes it
(07:31):
makes fires uncontrollable in myin my experience, so so we're
thinking about cheatgrass rightnow, we're just getting to,
we're just getting kind of agreen hue to rangelands in my
area, South slopes are startingto green up and a lot of that
green up is cheap grass. Andwe're thinking about
concentrating our cows on that,because when the grass is green,
(07:55):
it's a desired forage for ourcows. And it's frankly, fairly
decent forage, and quality ishigh in protein, and it comes
earlier than than the desirednative plants that that we like
out there. So if we can campsort of Camp our cows on cheap
grass, make them eat that sothat, that cheap grass doesn't
(08:16):
reproduce. In theory, we haveless of it. And in practice, you
know, by by reducing this year'scrop that's less to burn. So we
do that kind of in two ways. Wedo that sort of passively in
that, right now our cows arecalving in areas that are
cheatgrass prone, and we do itactively. And then we identify,
(08:38):
like, like we have a targetedgrazing area right now that
that's a steady, it's a steadyarea, but it's but it's working
in practice, targeted grazingarea that we will put cows in a
fence strip, and we will holdthem water with the thought that
you know, it's kind of thenuclear option. And we're not
really worried about about anative component in that area.
(08:59):
What we're trying to do is makedefensible space. We're trying
to make a fire break that firemanagers can use to control
fire. So So those are two thingsthat we're doing before fire to
try to mitigate risk of firethis coming season.
Megan Kay (09:14):
Do you guys do any besides targeted grazing, which
I mean makes total sense becauseyou have all these cows? Do you
do any other control methodslike prescribed burning, or? I
mean, I'd imagine mastication isnot a huge option but things
like that.
Jon Griggs (09:32):
We have done some control burning but we feel like
in our area in the in the CIgrass era controlled burning is
kind of off the table and it'sreally tough to keep cheatgrass
out of a burned area even evenreceiving post fire because not
a guaranteed success that thatwill keep t grass out of the
equation. So for us, for themost part controlled burn is off
(09:55):
the table. We haven't donemowings ourselves but our agency
part Your Bureau of LandManagement has done some in our
area that helps. But we, weprefer to use cattle to do that
as opposed to mechanizedequipment. And then really
that's before fire. That's kindof it for us.
Megan Kay (10:12):
I mean, it's it's a, you're right, you bring up a
good point, it's a constantbattle, like you try to burn to
get rid of the fuel, but thenyou basically are creating a
vacuum for native or forinvasive species to come in and
kind of take in takeover. Andespecially with such a large
area to manage doesn't seem
Jon Griggs (10:32):
like that would work. Well. The other thing too
is, is last time we did acontrol burn it was to try to
mitigate big stands of decadentsagebrush that were really kind
of crowding out everything elseand and were a massive fuel load
that we thought we could burn inJanuary, we had an open January
one year that was fairly dry,and we thought it would be good
time to try to build somemosaics into that big standard
(10:54):
decadence sage, we're talkingabout maybe 300 acres. That fire
about got away from us inJanuary and was a tense time and
so that kind of put the lid onit for us to think about it.
Control burn.
Megan Kay (11:12):
evacuations are stressful. Often communities
aren't given much notice beforeit's time to leave their homes.
Prepare for evacuation now.
Create an evacuation plan andpack a go bag with at least
three days of essentials forevery member of your family,
including pets, go to livingwith fire calm slash prepared
for more information.
(11:37):
Do you mind if we transition tokind of what looks like during a
fire? How do you go aboutkeeping everyone safe and even
possibly evacuating during afire?
Jon Griggs (11:46):
We in Elko County, we have a very robust volunteer
firefighter system. We're a partof that we have an elk county
brush truck on the ranch that weuse on us and our neighbors. And
then we have equipment of ourown. A water truck and a dozer
that we use. With our agencypartners, we really focused on
(12:07):
initial attack keeping spiresmall and catching them before
they before they get big thatthat's probably the first thing
97 out of 100 times probably inin our area that is successful,
we keep fires to the initialattack phase 10s of acres as
opposed to a hundreds of acres.
And that's really the goal,three out of 100 times we we do
not succeed, fires go big and gohundreds to 1000s of acres. What
(12:30):
we need to think about therefirst, we focus on initial
attack. And that really involvespeople on the ranch that are
trained and fight fire. And wedon't really involve other folks
on the ranch that are not. Sothen when we transition to big
fires, then we start thinkingabout about the community at
large, not just not just firefolks on the ranch. So So the
(12:52):
thing that your listeners couldtake for me. And what I would
want everybody to think about isthat when fires go big in your
community, is the time to startthinking about what your
personal response is going to bewhat your personal setup looks
like what your house looks like,what you care about that is at
risk, you know, livestock, pets,family, houses, buildings, those
(13:15):
kinds of things. And I say thisin a way to say that when
there's a smoke column in yourarea, that's the time to think
about what your response isgoing to be. Because by the time
that you recognize that fire isa threat to you, it's too late
to think about that.
Megan Kay (13:31):
And that's kind of why we exist as we're trying to
give people resources, knowledgeand empower them to live more
safely.
Jon Griggs (13:39):
That's what I really appreciate about your efforts.
Megan Kay (13:42):
When you have all of this all of these personnel and
you know, cattle to to lookafter, what kind of resources
besides your personal resources?
Do you call upon Dr. There? Iffor some reason you would have
to get like, you'd have to movecattle really fast? Is there
like a network of people withtrailers? Or do you have to
(14:04):
build that, for us, we
Jon Griggs (14:07):
almost have to triage our livestock in
arrangement environment, we knowthat fire moves so fast that
it's not safe for us to be ahorseback in front of a fire. We
don't do that, that kind of tiesinto that notion of there's fire
in your area, you need to makeplans before you're at risk.
Megan Kay (14:26):
So you shouldn't even be in a position where you're
saying you have to make thatsplit second decision, right.
Jon Griggs (14:31):
So that upfront plan would be making sure cows can't
get trapped, you know, gatesopen where they need to be open
and cows in my experience anywayto do a fair job of getting out
of the way when they can so yougot to be able to make sure that
they can I hate that triagethought but horses are more
valuable to us than cattle. Sowe definitely want to get those
(14:53):
out of the way and you knowthings things like that you're
thinking about things like that.
And you may you may call uponNeighbors get to bring vehicles
to help you with that,
Megan Kay (15:04):
but emphasize preparing early, so you don't
ever have to be in thatposition. So now I have a good
idea of what happens during afire. It can be scary.
Absolutely. Yep. Having beenthrough some major fires,
especially the one you talkedabout in 2007. I think you
already touched upon it, but totwo parts one part, do you what
(15:26):
have you learned from thoseevents? And do you have any
mitigation plans this year,like, Are there any big projects
that you're working on that youkind of chip away year after
year to make the ranch safer.
And then also, if you have anytips for for other ranchers or
just get people in people in thecommunity at large,
Jon Griggs (15:47):
the biggest thing I learned that I want listeners
know about the drum that you'rebeating, I lived in that you can
think that you're prepared. Butyou need to think bigger than
what you're thinking. We thoughtwe were prepared for the fire we
experienced in 2007. We werevery experienced with fire prior
to that. And we were taught avery painful lesson. I pray and
(16:09):
hope that nobody ever lives thatlesson again. And so the
preparations you're making, youknow, when you look at your
property, and you look at yourlivestock, and you look at where
you live, think bigger. Anotherthing to think about is make
relationships now, so whetheryou're you're a homeowner in a
somewhat have at risk area, oryou're a rancher on rangelands,
(16:31):
or, or any combination of thosethings, make relationships now,
you know, you don't have to be avolunteer firefighter, but you
can know who those folks are.
And you can know your your firemanagers in your area. And you
can have those relationships sothat when things are really bad,
you can know who to talk to, andyou can know how to get
(16:51):
information, and you can knowhow to make plans, you can have
answers when you need them. Andthat's that's a really big
thing. You know, I don't I don'treally have ongoing on the
ground, year to year projects,other than what we're trying to
do for fuels mitigation. But onething I do year to year is
maintain relationships with withfire agency folks and land
(17:13):
management agency folks thatdeal with before, during and
after fire and you can be aresource to them, as opposed to
put it bluntly, somebody thatthey will have to deal with that
doesn't know that which whichtakes away from their effort.
That's a pretty big deal to me.
Well said,
Jordan Buxton (17:32):
Where would wildfire rank on the risk for,
you know, a cattle ranch?
Because I imagine there are aplethora of threats that you
have to deal with, you know, ona daily and weekly basis. But
wildfire, it sounds like it, ithas the potential to destroy
large, large portions of youryour grazing land, which is a
huge threat to yourprofitability. So where would
(17:55):
you say it ranks?
Jon Griggs (18:01):
Think about it and that sort of metaphor I'm using
with factory So, so so thinkabout it as a as a big box
store? is is is the shoplifteryour biggest number one threat,
you know, cattle rustling isalive and well we we still brand
our cattle to identify them toto mitigate that to some extent,
(18:22):
but burning our factory burningthat big box store is our number
one threat, you know, unlike thebig box store it it can to some
extent rebuild itself. But thatthat could take years panic, you
know, if native range landscomes back as a cheatgrass
(18:44):
monoculture, then we've lost alot. And, and not only we lost a
lot, we're at risk for losing alot year after year. Right. Now,
the other thing about the otherthing about fire to me is that
as a ranch manager as a rancheris it's, it's a big, big thing
(19:04):
to me and that it's really beenhard to be proactive. For me
feels like you know, when I showyou that 70 80% of this ranch
has burned in the last 20 years,I've had a hard time clearly of
being proactive to that it feelslike I'm always reacted to that.
(19:25):
Or you know, it seems likewhenever we get ahead or you
know, or trying to try to dothings to get ahead and then we
torch off another 20,000 acresand and I have to react to that
and I have to find a place forthose cows or or you know find a
way to keep myself and my my coworkers employed without the
(19:47):
factory to support our calories.
So yeah, long answer to saynumber one
Megan Kay (20:00):
84% of wildfires nationwide are caused by people.
If you're planning on headingout and enjoying public lands,
visit Nevada fire info.org andlearn how you can recreate
responsibly and do your part toprevent wildfires.
Todd Ballowe (20:19):
I'm Todd Ballowe
Jole Rector (20:20):
and I'm Jole Rector.
Megan Kay (20:25):
The reason that I wanted to reach you guys I
wanted to talk to you for thispodcast is, you know, I follow
you on Instagram, Joey, and youposted this past summer, summer
20. about all the wildfires thathad come close to your house,
for example, the post thatreally resonated with me is in
October, you made a post and yousaid that there have been eight
(20:47):
wildfires within five miles ofyour home. And that just sounds
very stressful
Todd Ballowe (20:55):
is either five or six out of those eight, we could
actually see open flames.
Megan Kay (20:59):
And now some of those photos that you shared were
intense. Just that's that's thefeeling that I got from them. So
I was wondering, could you guysjust describe what kind of
effect that had on your, yourdaily life? And yeah, just in
your own words, kind of tell uswhat it was like.
Todd Ballowe (21:17):
It was it was a it was an interesting summer
because as more and more fireskept popping up nearby us, I
would get into this habit ofjust when I would go outside of
just checking the horizon andthe nearby areas to see if there
is any smoke in the air or openflames that we could see. Or one
(21:40):
of the later ones. I was workingat my desk and my computer
powered off. I went, Oh, thatkind of felt like a transformer
blew. So I walked outside. Andsure enough, one right across
the highway from us have blownand there was a fire going. And
you just besides being ready togo, we things packed so we could
(22:00):
get out if we needed to againquickly. There was a lot of Oh,
not again. Kind of frustrationthat would build up the just, it
was hard to believe that andthere was there was already one
this year. It wasn't abrushfire. It was um, I think
was an abandoned car. And that'sCory that's not too far from us.
(22:21):
But in January, we saw smokegoing up in there and we're
going already it's already justbarely starting 2021 and two
Here we go again, although wehave never been in any danger
from that. It's just the mentalstate you get to be in have been
prepared and also finding itkind of tedious in a way.
Megan Kay (22:47):
So it sounds like you guys always have your backpack
now. Always have that that gokit and that emergency bag
Jole Rector (22:53):
in the summertime.
Yeah, in the winter time weunpack and live in the house.
But yeah, it's summertime at thepeak of fire season we have we
have suitcases, basically livingin the bedroom. Or at least we
did last summer.
Megan Kay (23:09):
How does that compare to? I mean, because you said
you've been there since 2012.
Usually like how did last yearcompared to other seasons that
you've lived through up there?
Jole Rector (23:19):
Well, fire seasons are generally pretty frightening
out here. When I was here beforeTodd moved in. There was one
fire that was started by ahomeless person living at the
bottom of our neighborhood downin a ravine and he started a
fire trying to goodness knowswhat cook dinner or something
along those lines. And but thatdidn't get out of hand and
(23:41):
honestly the fire that camethrough the big fire that has
put our home in a sea of burnsGar
Megan Kay (23:49):
what fire was that was at the povo fire or
Jole Rector (23:52):
that was the Anderson acres fire. It was July
23 2020 and you know we hadalready I think this was like
our fifth fourth fire of theseason. Something like that
because our neighbors started afire in their yard just you know
cutting down the grass to tryand maintain for fire season and
(24:15):
fire started fortunately theygot he got that out really quick
but Todd was on it he was readyto run over and go help put it
out as necessary. So that wasour first fire of the season lat
and then we had the Provo billfire frequency which fortunately
we're on the leeway side so thatyou know the wind was pushing it
(24:39):
away from us although even asthe wind pushes a fire away it's
still slowly expands thatborder. On the windward side, we
were inside, whatever.
Megan Kay (24:50):
So what was it during those fires Did you guys have to
evacuate at all.
Jole Rector (24:57):
We definitely evacuated for the Anderson acre
Fire because I was looking, Iwas doing something over the
sink in the kitchen and lookingout the window above the kitchen
sink and soft flames rising upat the bottom of the
neighborhood. And we've got alittle hill across on the other
side of the freeway from us. Andand the flame started in was
(25:23):
going two thirds of the way upthat up that hill from our view.
And it was like, Oh my gosh,what do we do? And finally, I
just failed out in the house.
I'm like, get the dogs get thekid and we need to get out of
here. We had no bags. No. Wedidn't even have pull ups for
the kid. Or shoes. We just gotlike, okay, phone, computer
(25:46):
necessary things that, again, weneed for work and just getting
around in the world that presentday world and get out. So we had
to evacuate in six minutes. Wedidn't even really know what
were we were going to do. Wecalled our friends that live
over in sparks. And they're in ahigh fire area to you know, out
(26:06):
there. But Los Altos area, andthose little hills over there.
And but we went over there andand then pod went back first to
see if the evacuation order hadbeen lifted. But, you know, we
drove away from the housethinking we're homeless.
Todd Ballowe (26:26):
There was a wall of flame heading towards our
house that we had already hitthe road on the way out. And I
from what our neighbors way outof the neighborhood sorry, time
It made us made it through ourfence and about 1212 minutes
from where it started.
Megan Kay (26:46):
Where did it start?
Like in relation to you was veryclose to you know, it was about
a quarter of a mile away? Yeah,it's even like an eighth of a
mile. It was so you didn'treally it's not like something
you could see the flames comingover the hills. It was right,
right. Right in your backyard.
And then it sounds like becauseyou guys are so prepared. Now it
sounds like maybe was that theincident that made you think
(27:10):
that you know, we need to haveour bags packed.
Jole Rector (27:13):
Yeah. And then Todd has done a lot of I we both kind
of go team work at it. I reallywork on the gardens around the
house. And Todd has put ingravel paths. And we've both
been diligent over the years tocut down sagebrush on the
property because this house wasa foreclosure. And I feel like a
(27:33):
lot of people in our age bracketare buying foreclosures, because
that's what we can afford. Andwe're slowly fixing them up as
as we get the means to do so.
And so that's exactly what thishouse is. And this property is,
you might even remember, I don'tknow if you were up there that
season in 2012. When I when Igot
Megan Kay (27:53):
it, I remember when you were when you bought it. I
never went out to the house,though. But the But yeah, I was
we were working together at thattime.
Jole Rector (28:02):
The the whole property looked exactly like
your background there justsagebrush all around the house.
You know, if if there would havebeen a fire to the extent of the
Anderson acres fire back in2012, or two, you know, through
2000, probably all the waythrough 2015, then this house
(28:22):
would have gone up just inflames and been done.
Yeah. So in, in general, whatwould you say is the overall
kind of vibe of the community interms of like, Are your
neighbors? Are they active andtrying to remove? You know, the
sagebrush around their homes andinstall more rock and, and, and
(28:45):
gravel? Is there kind ofcommunity wide efforts? Or do
you feel like everyone's kind ofdoing their own thing and not
really kind of working out theneighborhood together on it?
Todd Ballowe (28:56):
I don't know that we necessarily work together as
neighborhood, Mommy, mainlybecause there's only what the 12
or 14 homes in the neighborhood,okay. And they're all on larger
parcels, like an acre or more.
And a lot of them are on two orthree. So but everybody does
maintain that we don't talkabout it. So we don't have like
(29:16):
a game plan as a community. Buteveryone, for the most part
maintains their own property andkeeps it clear and keeps the
grass mowed we're where that'swhere you can do that safely and
keeps the sagebrush pulled outas best as possible, our
neighbor across the street afterthat fire to Anderson acres
because had it jumped the roadthat we're on a long view, there
(29:41):
was quite a bit of sagebrush orbitterbrush right along the road
that could have caught fire andthen that home could have gone
down, potentially, but they'vesince cut that all down.
Megan Kay (29:56):
When you moved in Joey, were you aware? I mean,
You know, wildfires are scary,we have them in this area, but
were you like totally aware ofthe risk of the wildfire risk up
there,
Jole Rector (30:06):
I knew high fire zone. So you know, I'd heard
these phrases put out there. Andyou know, when I first got in
here, because we are literallyour next door neighbor is
volunteer fire department. Andat that time, they were having
regular Wednesday meetings wherethey would go over and the
(30:27):
volunteers would sit down andhave a meeting. And at some
point, I think I wascommunicating with them because
you know how I am I like to goup and say hi to everybody and
meet all the people and interactand socialize and flap my lips,
because I'm a talker. And andthey were like, you need to you
need to put defensible spacearound that house. And so I was
(30:51):
working nights as a blackjackdealer at GSR and, and so my
system was I would work on theweekends and then I would get up
and go out and fill my mydumpster with as much sagebrush
as I could pack in there. And sothat would be my Wednesday
(31:13):
routine, I would get up, go cutdown sagebrush fill up the trash
can and take it up, because theypicked up our trash late at that
point. And, and then I hadsomeone come over and help me
just do a big cut down ofsagebrush. And so the defensible
space has been slow. And onething that I would that I would
(31:36):
think for listeners is to, youknow, be aware and make the
changes necessary. But try notto overwhelm yourself, you know,
if you cut down one sage brush,or one rabbit brush, and that's
that much more space that you'vejust opened up to not literally
be a torch going.
Megan Kay (31:58):
Yeah, I think a lot of people get overwhelmed,
because we give all thesedefensible space
recommendations, and they'relike, I can't do all of this.
And then maybe they just don'tstart. And yeah, just you're
absolutely right, just removingone bush at a time will reduce
the risk. For sure.
Jole Rector (32:16):
Yeah, and then going from there, because once
you start putting, I don't know,I've been thinking about entropy
a lot, you know, because we'reall living in our households.
And so there's a certain amountof energy that's cycling through
the household. And you canalways, you know, if you put
energy in one direction withwithin the system, the closed
system, then it's going to beconducive to continue that
(32:41):
within the system. And so youknow, if you cut down one
sagebrush, then it's going toopen up space for you to see
what else what you know, whatneeds to be done from there. And
then you, you take the nextstep, and then your next step
will be presented to you. Andso, you know, it is a slow
process, but it does gainmomentum, as you as you work
(33:02):
with it.
Megan Kay (33:03):
What have you. What have you guys learned with like
creating your defensible spaceand working on your house? And
what what do you what are youplanning on doing this year to
kind of prepare for wildfire?
Well,
Todd Ballowe (33:17):
definitely one of the things we learned is that
the gravel works great and thatif it had been windier, our
outcome might not have been thesame. So we're there's actually
some of the gravel paths thatare a little bit further away
from the house. There are aboutfour feet wide. And we're
(33:38):
probably going to expand thoseby a couple of feet to try and
keep it from even getting thatclose to the house and also
clearing out around the fencebecause a lot of the our fence
was held up with wooden postsand those are all gone and so
it's because they're burned nowthey were they got destroyed.
(34:01):
And then of course there'sthere's a metal post hoping it
holding it up as well. So it'sstill standing but the wooden
posts are all gone. And it'sgood to keep that area clean
too. And it's so it's not justyour house, it's it's avenues
towards your house. There's thefrontage along our road. That's
(34:22):
a an easement. It's nottechnically our property but I
make sure I keep that allcleaned down with the grass
because we have a pretty largeWild Rose patch that it's nearly
impossible to clean out the deadwild girls out there because the
thorns and if that guy that gothit by a fire it would be pretty
(34:43):
crazy the the damage it couldpotentially do that's far from
our house and we have a lot ofdefensible space between us and
them.
Megan Kay (34:50):
So you guys are I mean I feel like he has already
shared some great tips forlisteners. But is there anything
else that you want to shareanything that comes to mind?
Jole Rector (34:58):
You know when it comes down to it, your house and
your material belongings are notimportant. your health, your
safety. That's what's important.
So pack up, get your animals,get your kids make sure that
everybody's safe and just letthe firefighters do their work.
Because if you stay behind in anevacuation and they have to come
(35:20):
in and use the area around youto manage a fire, if people are
still in their homes andrefusing to evacuate, which we
do have a lot of neighbors inthe neighborhood that are guilty
of that, then it doesn't allowthe firefighters to do the work
that they need to do because nowthey're focusing on your safety
rather than working with thefire. And so I think that's
(35:41):
really important is just just gosomewhere safe. If you're in a
really sketchy situation, justpack up, get out of there, go
somewhere safe and do whateverit is that it can help you calm
down.
Megan Kay (36:03):
Thank you for listening to the living with
fire podcast You can find morestories about wildfire and other
resources at living with firecalm. The Living fire program is
funded by the University ofNevada, Reno extension, Nevada
Division of Forestry Bureau ofLand Management and the United
States Forest Service.
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