...The Forest Service writes only that the fire was human caused. l have found nothing that says this fire was caused by drug runners, on a known drug smuggling route, to keep from being caught by the Border Patrol. What I was told by several individuals, and one who monitors the two-way radio transmissions of the suspected drug smugglers, is that the ”druggedos” were laughing about how the fire they set stopped the Border Patrol. Then some days later, they complained the drugs would have to be hauled farther east because of the number of government employees in the area. Further, there was talk of hot shot crews running into drug mules on their way up the mountain to fight the fire...
l was told that after the Horseshoe ll Fire got around the Horseshoe I Fire, all bets were off on stopping it, and the continued attempts to burn out in front of, and behind, the main fire just kept making the fire bigger. The larger the Forest Service made the fire through its burn out attempts, the smaller the chance of stopping it became, until it became obvious to members of the community that the Horseshoe ll Fire was going to burn the entire range. One individual made the point that if the Forest Service had just gone home after they let the fire get around the Horseshoe I fire, and not burned out so much country, the Horseshoe ll Fire would have been about a quarter of the size it was. Further, if the Forest Service would have kept Horseshoe ll from backing to the south and west around the Horseshoe l Fire, the fire would have probably been only one-tenth its final size.
The so-called controlled back burning, its timing, and the amount of country involved that was private property, shows the stupidity, ignorance, and total disregard for people, infrastructure and my watchable wildlife...
I rode the burn areas on five ranches, I rode all day long and at the end of the day, I was black with soot, not ash. One individual in the area is a Vietnam vet, and his expertise was in napalm. He pointed out in certain areas how the burn was so intense and hot, that the result was fine soot not unlike what he experienced in Vietnam so many years ago. I was taken to a ridge near a road and the snags were standing from what once was quite a beautiful, peaceful place. Erosion has started there and there is no evidence of Forest Service personel filling the snags to hold the water back to help keep the soil intact. The water now floods down off the ridge with debris, and has taken out the fencing on private property three times. This situation prevented the rancher from using his private property there, and has affected his pasture rotation, thus creating loss of revenue for that individual. From ridge after ridge, and drainage after drainage, one can easily see how the fire slowed down in the drainages and then raced up north slopes destroying everything. On top of these ridges is a barren rock wasteland. What were once, by old 1870 photo standards, trees in good condition, are now just rocks with some grass coming back - forget any of the oak trees, they are nothing but blackened short stumps. This burned at the wrong time of year, and the conditions were very dry.
The damage done to private property boggles my mind, and sends my blood pressure to levels only A-10 pilots should fly. Imagine a fire out of control, and the Forest Service can effectively burn your house down, and you have no say in the matter. In areas where the Forest Service set backfires on private property, the damage is immense and unwarranted. In one case, a Forest Service bulldozer cut a fire line on private property. The operator bladed up a draw and did not blade the overflow side of a water catchment. Rather, he bladed out the dam side of the water tank. He bladed up the draw, through the fence, onto a hillside. He then bladed off the eastern slope of a hill that had a fenced area, taking out all four sides of the fence.
”Here’s your sign."...
The damage to my favorite windmill in the range brought out much anger, I had to stop for a minute and get control of my emotions. Here was a windmill that a family, with picks and shovels and buckets and mules, dug 80 feet into the earth in the 1920s, hit water, put a pipe in the middle of the hole, filled the hole with rocks, sand and dirt and built a concrete tank about 20 feet in diameter. The tank is filled with soot, has been dug out twice since the fire, and has filled in again. Due to the intensity of the fire and the flooding after the fire, the water comes down so fast, and with the debris from the nearby creek, floods over the top of the three-foot-high concrete tank. This is a place where I have always stopped to check for tracks of deer and predators. Now, not one track, and no water. The thought is that the soot has clogged the well pipe. Think of all the watchable wildlife that drank from that one windmill for the last 100 years. It makes me wonder if the Forest Service is going to fix that water installment to help maintain wildlife.
Leaving that old windmill, I continued following the fire line across private property. Before anyone said a word, l knew what l was seeing and what has been happening. Two of the landowners said that the fire line, cut through private property, is now the new trail of the drug-running mules. The Forest Service has now contributed to a faster, easier and more efficient way to get dope across the mountain range.
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