Gem County Ranchers recover from Paddock fire

Damage from the massive Paddock fire is still being assessed by Gem County Ranchers, but as I found out, there’s room for hope. Robert Oxarango and his family knew the fire was getting very serious as it neared their ranch north of Emmett.

• Gem County ranchers recovering from massive Paddock Fire
• Fast-moving fire burned close to 200,000 acres, forcing ranchers to make tough business decisions

(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story

"I fought fires for eight years for the forest service and I saw some very unique nighttime fire behavior in this," said Robert Oxarango. "It burned as radically during the night as it did during the middle of the day."

Oxarango knew they better get their cattle out of harm's way as quickly as possible.

"As it turned in our case, we ended up opening every gate we had so they could go wherever they wanted to go," Oxarango said. "It worked out okay, we haven't found a dead animal of ours."

Other ranchers weren't so fortunate, as they discovered some of their cows did not make it. When it was all said and done, the Paddock fire burned close to 200,000 acres of mostly open range.

I asked Oxarango about the ranching community.

"We're out in the country, but this is a big neighborhood, right? It's a big neighborhood. The ranching community is big," Oxarango said. "As ranchers, we all know each other but even our neighbors in Emmett and Boise support us and want to help in any they can and you'd be surprised everything from lunches to hay donated after fire. People have called offering us pastures. It's been incredible."

After the smoke cleared up and the fires were out, Oxarango and his neighbors still had to determine how badly their grazing pastures were burnt.

Here's a good example of what we're talking about. The flames moved fast enough that they went across the top of the vegetation, and didn't get down into the roots and that's important because the vegetation is already coming up, and hopefully by next spring all of this will green again.

But they can't count on all of it coming back. Ranchers are businessmen and will have to make some tough decisions.

"Even though the fire's cold, people are still making decisions," Oxarango said. "We have sold some cows because on the Butte, it represents our spring and summer grazing. We could see the writing on the wall for us."