Massive Fires in the Southwest

[ZiaLand]

There is a huge grass fire burning tonight near Lovington, NM (where four of my broodmares and a week old filly are right now ). One nearby town has already lost it's post office. The fire is estimated at 100,000 acres and is being fanned by high winds. It is 0% contained. Evacuations are in process. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't anywhere near 'my girls'. I'm sure I'll be hearing from the farm soon, if so.

Also, I'm hearing reports (nothing official on the news yet) that there's a 300,000 grassfire burning in the Texas panhandle in the general area of Amarillo. The reports sound pretty bad, if true.

Hopefully these fires will be contained without any loss of life, human or otherwise.

Laurie

[toadie]

Having had to evacuate 3wks ago due to a fire, I feel your pain. Hopefully you'll be as fortunate as we were. While I was debating about what to do (7 horses and a 3horse trailer) the sheriff came knocking on the door and told us to get out. A friend later commented that I probably took my 3 most valuable horses, but it actually boiled down (no pun intended) to who loaded the easiest. I took the 3 to a friend's 10 miles away and waited for my S. O. to call with further instructions. Poor guy, he's not very "horsey" and I just told him to open the gates and let the rest of them out, if he had to leave before I could get back.

[Lei Owen]

If you fold back or remove your divider's in your trailer, you can cram in a couple more. It might be a tight fit, but it's not like they're going a long way. This was what people were doing in Lousiana and Mississippi during Katrina. Of course, this was water not fire!

Our farm has the Illinois River running through a corner of one pasture. Normally, at this point, it's not a river, but a trickle. One spring, we had so much rain in a 24 hour period, the trickle turned into a river and was over the bank's. We had 6 mare's in the pasture it flooded. We moved them in a 2 horse with the divider folded back, 3 at a time. The farm road was too narrow to use a bigger trailer.

No farther than we took them, we could have rode one and ponied the other's. Or we could have loaded them all in the stock trailer and backed it up to the pasture gate to unload. Or we could have turned them loose in the front yard and closed the gate to the drive. Ain't hindsight wonderful?

[BJ]

There is a huge grass fire burning tonight near Lovington, NM (where four of my broodmares and a week old filly are right now ). One nearby town has already lost it's post office. The fire is estimated at 100,000 acres and is being fanned by high winds. It is 0% contained. Evacuations are in process. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't anywhere near 'my girls'. I'm sure I'll be hearing from the farm soon, if so.

Also, I'm hearing reports (nothing official on the news yet) that there's a 300,000 grassfire burning in the Texas panhandle in the general area of Amarillo. The reports sound pretty bad, if true.

Hopefully these fires will be contained without any loss of life, human or otherwise.

Laurie

Oh my goodness Laurie Have you heard anything? Are they alright?

You might want to move them anyway. The smoke from the fires caused lots of respiratory problems here in Southern Calif. a couple of years ago. That was heartbreaking. I helped some people find their missing horses. People were just letting them loose, or sometimes people would come by with trailers and just take them somewhere safe, but the communication was next to non-existent and so many were unlocatable for days and weeks.

[brooke]

all of I-40 was shut down from amarillo to Shamrock, TX 7 deaths so far. and the traffic was crzy.

[Bedouwia]

Laurie, please let us know when you get some news about your horses. In the Texas panhandle, over 700,000 acres burned, and 11 dead according to the news reports. The weather tomorrow is predicted to be windly, so not good news. We are in a serious drought here, and hay supplies are about gone for those of us who are not on fire. I wish you all the best, and anyone else affected.

Bedouwia

[rds]

The NM fire is out. It was under control and out by Monday. Was probably about 8 miles N of the farm, but no smoke near the farm.

I would have written earlier, but am not looking at the forum all that often.
The very dry weather is making life very scarey in NM/TX right now. Let's hope for a good rain to green things up.

Lauries foal is very cute, and she has a new pic to post!

BTW - check out the farm web site - http://www.windsor-farms.com
We have a pedigree-query form which should be activated sometime tomorrow on the stallion page. Very fun!

I have to say we are very excited about our stallions. They are getting mares in foal, so bring yours, and take advantage of the lucurative NM bred program!

Until later!

[ZiaLand]

Thanks for your concerns, everyone. As rds said, everything turned out fine.

Well, so far.... Two big grass fires this year already and it's not even fire season yet. Hopefully we'll get more rain or snow to add to last week's and things will improve a bit.

It sounds like the fire in Texas turned into a disaster. 900,000 acres burned last I heard, and 6,000 horses and cattle were killed. My heart goes out to anyone in that area.

::: prayin' for rain :::

Laurie

[austique]

Its burning again in OK as well.

[graham]

Death toll on cattle and horses is around 12,000. It has been raining here the last 3 days ( first measureable rain since august) and all the fires are 100% contained. At least 11 deaths due to the fire. I have known one elderly man that lost his life for about 30 years. From my barn I could see the glow from the fires on the first night. It was the largest grass fire in the states history.

[BJ]

Death toll on cattle and horses is around 12,000. It has been raining here the last 3 days ( first measureable rain since august) and all the fires are 100% contained. At least 11 deaths due to the fire. I have known one elderly man that lost his life for about 30 years. From my barn I could see the glow from the fires on the first night. It was the largest grass fire in the states history.

So horribly tragic. The U.S. has certainly seen a lot of natural tragedy recently.