LAME DEER, Mont. — Wildfires tearing through Montana and elsewhere in the U.S. West are devouring vast rangeland areas that cattle ranchers depend upon, setting the stage for a potential shortage of pasture as the hot, dry summer grinds on.
On the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, firefighters and local authorities scrambled to save hundreds of homes in the path of a fire that started Sunday and exploded across more than 260 square miles in just a few days, triggering evacuation orders for thousands of people.
Some ranchers stayed behind to help fight it. Yet as flames charred mile after mile of rangeland and forest, they could do little to protect cattle pastures that are crucial to economic survival for families on the remote reservation.
As the fire raged across rugged hills and narrow ravines, tribal member Darlene Small helped her grandson move about 100 head of cattle to a new pasture, only to relocate them twice more as the flames from the Richard Spring fire bore down, she said Thursday. An extreme drought that’s blanketing the West has made matters worse by stunting vegetation untouched by fire.
“They’ve got to have pasture where there’s water. If there’s no water, there’s no good pasture,” Small said.
Particularly hard hit were some ranchers already depending on surplus grass after a fire burned them off their normal pasture last year, she said.
Meanwhile, California’s Dixie Fire — which started July 13 and is the largest wildfire burning in the nation — threatened a dozen small communities in the northern Sierra Nevada even though its southern end was mostly corralled by fire lines.
The fire has burned 790 square miles, destroyed about 550 homes and nearly obliterated the town of Greenville last week. It was 30% contained.
The Montana blaze was primed over the last several days by swirling winds and hot temperatures. It has spread in multiple directions, torching trees and sending off embers that propelled the flames across the dry landscape.
The fire crept within about a mile of the eastern edge of the evacuated town of Lame Deer Wednesday night, Northern Cheyenne Tribe spokesperson Angel Becker said. It passed over a highway where officials had hoped to stop it, putting the southern portion of the reservation at increased risk, officials said.
As it closed in on the east side of town and a second fire ignited to the west, tribal officials late Wednesday urged residents who did not heed an earlier evacuation order to flee. Buses moved people to a school about 15 miles away and to a shelter set up on the nearby Crow Indian Reservation.