N RANCHING
atural Resources
out of the tank you’re going to have to wait until there’s another signifi cant rain event to refi ll it. Allowing time for the sediment to settle out, or just wind and agita- tion to help address dissolved oxygen issues would probably be the recommended practice.”
Guard water supplies against fi re A rancher can also take some precautions to guard
water supplies against either a wildfi re or an upcom- ing prescribed burn. In the latter case, says McDonald, “You could leave a large enough buffer around the dirt tanks to essentially work as a fi lter. If any water moves from your prescribed burn areas through that fi lter into the dirt tank, you could certainly have more options.” As protection against an unplanned fi re, McDonald
says a landowner could theoretically create a fi reguard some distance upslope from the water source that would fi lter sediment and runoff from entering the water. Another option is to excavate pits to catch some of the sediment as it drops out and moves across the landscape in the runoff water, or just put fi lter strips around the dirt tank. There are erosion control products made for construction that can be used. In addition to sediment, a fi re can produce a huge
infl ux of ash. McDonald says that is more common in areas where there is a lot of vegetation and fi ne fuel, not in West Texas. There are exceptions, though. She cites the 2011
Rock House Fire, which started April 9 of that year west of Marfa in Presidio County and then moved into Jeff Davis County. The fi re burned more than 314,000 acres, destroyed homes and businesses, and killed
herds of cattle and some horses. It wasn’t extinguished until after May 6. “What was kind of unique about that was that it
started in April and because it was an electrical fi re in an abandoned house,” she says. “The wind was very, very strong, and of course the conditions were dry.” Rain, of course, can be the fi refi ghters’ best friend
and McDonald says that their rainy season is late July, August and September. West Texas entered into its extreme 1-year-plus drought at about the same time as the Rock House Fire. “The fi re has had a pretty lasting impact at higher
elevations because it burned a lot of conifers, which are not root sprouters,” she says. “During the rainy months, at the beginning of the rainy season, we have dry lightning storms, but April is almost completely off of our expected fi re weather and rainy weather schedule. That is why it was really very painful, when compared to a wildfi re that starts in July and gets put out by rainfall after a few hours or a few days.” McDonald, a hydrologist by trade, says conditions
are again conducive to wildfi re. “Unfortunately, that’s how the El Niño-Southern Os-
cillation works,” she says. “During unusually wet years, we grow a lot of fuel. In 2015, I think it rained every single month here out west until June. We didn’t get any rain during our normal rainy season, and we’ve had a really wet winter so far. So we have a lot of fuel and the soil is still moist, but we’ve had really high winds. As things begin to dry out and we enter the La Niña phase, whenever that starts, I suspect that we could have conditions for some substantial wildfi res again.”
56 The Cattleman May 2016
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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