Be careful, so the cows can come home

ST. VRAIN — Most of the cows have names.

Mocha is the color of chocolate coffee. Cake likes to eat cattle cake. Cheetos will take Cheetos from your hand through the fence.

The Young family’s cows were in danger on Saturday afternoon. Fire broke out just west of their pasture.

“We’d left the house and gone to town. We’d been gone maybe 10 minutes,” LaShawna Young said, “when a neighbor called in a panic and said we needed to get home.”

Within 20 minutes, “the flames were 10-foot high, already at our fence line,” Young said.

“Some men were out there with water tanks they use to water their cows, soaking the ground and trying to get it stopped.”

The Youngs gathered their cows, about 30 in all, “and watched as the fire department saved our lives,” she said.

Only a quarter acre of land was torched, and no homes, stock, or even fences were destroyed. For that, Young is most grateful.

But she’s a little annoyed with the irresponsible funseekers she suspects are responsible for the frightening experience.

“We believe it was probably caused by gunshots,” she said. “We found targets and bullet shells where the fire started.

“You don’t think about it, but when you’re firing into dead grass, it can cause a spark.”

Kaoma Burnett, a volunteer firefighter who also runs the Melrose school lunchroom, said the grass fire was one of six calls the tiny department went out on last week.

She agreed the shooters — the Youngs heard them just before they left for town — were likely responsible for the blaze on Saturday afternoon.

“I’m not going to say it’s common, but it absolutely can happen,” Burnett said. “Depending on what kind of ammo or gun they’re using, it can very easily start a grass fire. Especially as dry as it is. The dry grass makes it real easy to start a fire.”

Young said she has several friends who lost entire herds of cattle in the Texas Panhandle grassfires in March. That disaster claimed the lives of four people and 2,500 cattle, charred nearly a half-million acres of grazing land and destroyed almost 1,000 miles of fence.

The fire east of St. Vrain only reached a neighbor’s treeline and came within 20 feet of taking their house, Young said, in addition to threatening the Young’s property, cattle and home.

“But it could have been devastating to our family, and to our area’s economy,” Young said.

She doesn’t think the target shooters were malicious, and she knows someone — possibly even the shooters — called 911 soon after the blaze began.

But she wants to warn everyone that a grass fire anywhere on the High Plains this time of year could prove deadly as it did in the Panhandle.

So be careful.

Mocha, Cake and Cheetos would appreciate it, too.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]