By Raymond Ragsdale, Broadus VFD
Broadus Fire responded to a shop fire on May 5th at the John Stuver Ranch, which consumed a shop. The fire was caused by a generator, started during the planned power outage. The shop was a total loss. Carey Trumps, Raymond Ragsdale, Dixie Mitchell, Clint Pedersen, Chase Talcott, Donna Wilson, and Cass Zimmer responded quickly to the fire and helped save nearby structures and equipment.
The Broadus VFD then responded to two fires on Wednesday, May 20th during the storm that blew through, one on Bay Horse and one on Baking Powder Rd. We were unable to make it to either of them because of the rain and hoped there was enough rain to put them out. On Thursday morning, BLM crews from Fort Howes went to the fire on Bay Horse and mopped it up and made sure it wasn’t going to go anywhere, with the fire consuming around 1 acre in total. We sure appreciated the BLM’s work, because Thursday evening we were paged out to Butte Creek for a little fire that had taken a while to get going. It only burned a little over an acre but I was surprised to see how well it burned thru the green grass. On Friday afternoon the fire on Baking Powder took off again on top of a knob and burned down the west side of the hill through the rocks. Myself, Donna, Clint, & Casey Slovek, along with the Bowers crew got around it, but with the uncertainty of the weather I asked if the BLM crews could come and give us a hand, and with their help we got everything we could put out, and good hand line put around the stuff we couldn’t reach with our trucks. The fire burned a couple acres in total. What I have found on these little fires is that it isn’t having any problem burning grass and the trees. The juniper especially don’t seem to have a lot of moisture for so early in the year. I would like for the folks who have their own spray units to be thinking about getting them loaded and full of water because we might need them.
Raymond Ragsdale, Broadus VFD
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