Had a fire just north of the horse ranch where I keep my horses yesterday. Destroyed a bunch of greenhouses, living trailers and a garage plus 5 acres. Fast moving and needed 120 firefighters and a chopper to get it out. The San Martin Airport and the ranch were in the direct path downwind of the fire. I had to leave work in a hurry and have my wife meet me there with the truck. We hooked up the horse trailer and prepared to evacuate if needed. Some people did evacuate. Very very dry around here and the winds have been kicking up in the afternoon with high gusts. Scary. It's a two horse trailer and we have 3 horses plus a friend has one horse and no trailer. If there is time, I can make two trips to a designated safe ranch. If only time for one trip, I can have my wife trailer out two and I'd ride one out and pony/lead a second out of the direct path and trailer them the rest of the way.
I was OK. No danger to me but the horses are in stalls and the property is fenced. No place to go unless you trailer them out. The smoke/heat would kill them first or give them severe upper respiratory infections which might do the same thing unless it was mild. You could turn them loose into the parking area , which is completely bare dirt/decomposed granite but, then they would panic, go right back to their stalls or blow through the fences onto 6 lane Highway 101 or neighborhood streets.
I'm glad to hear you're allright, Rich, I can only imagine how you must've felt with that fire near your home
Thanks Klaus. No danger to my home thank God. The ranch is 8 miles away. On another note, we do have an arsonist in my neighborhood who insists on setting 3-4 fires a year near the creek preserve. The fire department has developed a separate fire response strategy just for those fires. We had another one about 3 weeks ago.
Now THAT's scary! We had a few arsonists in the last few years here in upper austria burning down ranches. Haven't they found the bugger yet?
Glad to hear you made it through OK. The scariest news reports for me are the ones where fires burn through a large part of any countryside. Arsonists should be put in jail forever, in my biased opinion.
Arson is a terrible thing, I recently had some property literally "Burned-down" to the ground (by arsonists) in late '06. Glad to hear you are OK Rich.
Nope and what's worse, there is a jogging trail that goes through there and there has been two rapes this spring. Right next to the Gilroy High School. This is about a 600 meters or 1960 feet from the house. Haven't caught that person either. Just too many places to hide and not be seen. It's 3 streets over and another small creek preserve in between us and there. Enough of a buffer zone so that my immediate neighborhood and street are very quiet and trouble free.
Wow good everything worked out for you Rich, Perhaps you have the calamity plan already now on paper know what to do if the next time real fire might hit you ,atleast you got the plan ready ! some people think bad stuff only happends to others and then you are unprepared. I was reading your ideas and almost got cold sweat that you would write which favorite horse you would have to pick if you only had time for 1 trailer ride. argggh me and my horror stories. :mad:
I won't write which horses but I know already. Each ranch I have boarded at, I have had an emergency plan for fire. You have to around here. The ranch in Milpitas was the worst. It was high up in the tinder dry foothills with only one road through the area. I know what horses get priority given their ability to load into a trailer in time and what ones would go second or ride/walk out if possible. There are other factors I won't mention. I also have the option of tying the horses to the bed of the truck and have them go along side while I drive slowly out. Not good for feet on hard pavement but better than leaving them. In all cases time and fire proximity danger are the deciding factors for which plan I use. Many horse owners don't have a trailer at all. In truth, the ranch I am at currently has the small private airport immediately to the north and that gives a slight buffer zone since they keep the grass down to a minimum and no trees. The bad side is the flight path for takeoffs and landing are right over the ranch. OK, enough horror. This discussion also reminds me that we are going to go over fire drills/plan with my daughter shortly for home. We have to do it in case of a major earthquake anyway.
Rich, Glad you and the animals are OK. Sounds like your plan is to be prepared, happy it didn't have to go any further. I completly understand about the fires, in fact we have two burning in our area here in Florida as we speak. A few years ago when we lived in the woods we had one that came into our yard. Talk about an adrenalin rush. Thank goodness for brush trucks and garden hoses. As grandpappy always said "Take care of those horses and they'll take care of you" or close to that. Best!
