Ore. Wildfires Leave Ranchers Without Grazing Land

ROBERT SIEGEL: Two giant wildfires in eastern Oregon have killed hundreds of cattle and jeopardized ranchers' livelihoods. The fires have burned more than 1,000 square miles of sagebrush and juniper and that leaves ranchers with nowhere to graze the cattle they managed to save.

That's a problem in a town called Burns, as we hear from Amelia Templeton of Oregon Public Broadcasting.

AMELIA TEMPLETON: The night the fires started, a thunderstorm passed over the Trout Creek Mountains. Lightning ignited the dry grass. Richard and Jeanette Yturriondobeitia own a ranch at the foot of the mountain.

RICHARD YTURRIONDOBEITIA: We could see smoke, so we went that direction and the fire came to meet us. It looked like hell or what you would imagine hell would look like.

AMELIA TEMPLETON: Swift winds from the thunderstorm blew the fire west toward the ranch, so Richard, his wife and daughter and a few close friends saddled their horses and began rounding up cattle as the fire raced toward them.

RICHARD YTURRIONDOBEITIA: Cows are not afraid of fire. They just go where they normally go and so you have to get them to move.

AMELIA TEMPLETON: The wind kept switching directions. The fire trapped the animals and killed more than 130 cows and calves and one bull.

RICHARD YTURRIONDOBEITIA: They're my cows. I just couldn't help them. That's the part that gets me.

JEANETTE YTURRIONDOBEITIA: We've never experienced anything like this. I've never seen this.

AMELIA TEMPLETON: That's Richard's wife, Jeanette.

JEANETTE YTURRIONDOBEITIA: And people say to us that we'll lose more if their feet are burned or their bags are burned, their udders. They don't have a chance.

READ MORE