Frantic cattle roundup in front of Grizzly Bear Fire

Published 7:04 am Monday, August 24, 2015

Buck and Chelsea Matthews, managers of the Burns Ranch on Grouse Flats north of Troy, are still scrambling to round up cattle and haul them to safety as the Grizzly Bear Complex burns.

“Buck hasn’t had three hours sleep in three days,” said Chelsea Matthews, Monday morning.

“Our concern right now is that the Forest Service wants to back-burn on Eden Bench and we still have 300 cows out there. We’re trying pretty hard to get word to the Forest Service that we would really like the opportunity to get them out.”

The cattle on Eden Bench are on a grazing allotment on Forest Service land. Because of the remoteness and size of the ranch, the roundup is being coordinated by radio. Cell phones don’t work.

But landlines still do. The Matthews contacted Wallowa County Commissioners in Enterprise to intercede on their behalf this morning and Commissioner Paul Castilleja is on his way to the ranch.

“The Forest Service hasn’t given us an answer, yet,” said Matthews, “but I’m feeling more confident by the minute.”

All of the other stock on the 10,000-acre ranch are accounted for, Matthews said.

“All the home ranch cows are all right,” she said. “We lost tons of pasture and timber, probably around 6,000 acres, but what our friends and (fellow) ranchers did was outstanding. They hauled 20 head of ranch horses out in the middle of the night. They moved cows onto the burnt area after the fire passed through because everything else was grass that could have been burned.”

The cows on the burnt area are now eating up the hay intended for winter and the fall feed is ashes, Williams said.

“We’ll have to get our cattle out of here eventually, our fall feed is pretty much gone,” she said.

For that extraction operation big cattle trucks will be hired from one of the local market haulers.

The structures on the ranch were all preserved, Matthews said, thanks to the two water trucks the ranch operates and the work of Buck Matthews, ranch owners Mike and Pat Burns, ranch hand Josh Markeson, local Enterprise ranchers Todd and James Nash, Kevin McCadden and Collin Cunningham, Collin’s friend Jared Wingfield and Matthews’ friends Lou Heytvelt of Pomeroy, Wash., and Joe Platz of Union — both experienced at structure protection.

According to several ranchers from the area, no other cattle were in danger at this time.

Red flag conditions still pertain in the area, though Grouse Flats is now mostly burnt.

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