Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

While you slept ...

Julie Carter

There is absolutely not anything funny about a grass or forest fire but often in the midst of the firefight, humor arrives.

One night on the remote plains of the far side of the county, a lightning strike started a fire in a ranch pasture.

Not anything much out there except miles of ranchland and what remained of a teensy town that had retained only a few deserted buildings and a name.

It was also at least two hours by highway from any real fire-fighting agency.

The nearest rancher to this ghost-stop on the highway served as mayor and fire chief by title and reputation. High desert ranching requires a great sense of humor and the occasional ego boost that an elevated title can sometimes provide.

One of the items remaining in the long-deserted town of Ramon was an ancient fire truck. The battery required constant charging, which didn't happen, and the water tank leaked so it was never full. Other than that, it was in fine shape.

The night of this specific grass fire, the phone calls went out to a few ranchers.

Waking up the chief of the Ramon Fire Department took some doing, but he finally answered the phone.

Pulling on his britches and his hat, the usual rancher's lid that needed an oil change months ago, he hollered at his nearly adult son and out the door they went.

The process of charging the battery and finding a hose to fill the water truck began.

Meanwhile, over the hill back to the west, another cowboy who had always been a addicted to farm sales, knew he had a cattle sprayer parked somewhere "over yonder on the hill."

The most recent endorsement of this piece of equipment had been at a cattle-spraying event.

A cowboy commented that he could pee further than the sprayer could spray, leaving its validity as fire fighting equipment certainly at least questionable.

However, it did hold water, so after the tires were aired up, the cowboy hooked onto it with the pickup and off he went over the hill to fight the fire.

By this time, the fire had gotten so big, that in the dark, it alone summoned folks from near and far.

Back at the Ramon Fire Department, aka the chief's house, the fire truck was revved up and headed out to the fire. It was very dark and hard to see where exactly to drive as the truck made its way through the pasture toward the flames.

The chief was at the wheel of the truck, barreling through the night to the rescue like a caped crusader, while his eldest son was riding fireman-style on the truck fender hollering "EEEE, HAAWWW," at the top of his lungs.

About that time, the chief drove the truck off in a wash and it came to a sudden, solid halt, nose down. The son on the fender was tossed through the air, landing somewhere in the near vicinity. But he came up dusting himself off. No harm done.

Nothing broke, except the fire truck.

Nearly everyone in close proximity of the fire left what they were doing to go check out the fire truck wreck.

Meanwhile the cowboy with the sprayer, coming to save the day, blew out a tire. So when the chore of dragging the chief and his fire truck out of the wash was finished, the crew all went to see what the problem was with the cowboy.

In the meantime, the rancher with the fire on his property had put his road grader into operation and made a fire-line circle around the fire. The flames eventually died out on their own.

It was still the wee hours of the morning, everyone was wide-awake and nobody wanted to go back home. So they circled their rigs, drug out the food they'd brought (another standard thing for country folk) and had a version of a block party.

The rancher thanked everyone for their help, and exhausted, headed off to tend to his livestock and ranch chores.

All this while you slept.

Julie can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com

Which reminds me, Rex Allen's The Fireman Cowboy would make a great Song Of The Day. Tune in Monday.