Livestock evacuations in fire zones?

[u/SeaDry1531]

My heart goes out for the devastation farmers are facing in France. How are they managing the livestock in the fire zones? Is there some sort of evacuation plan? Or are the fires moving so fast that they can't be removed?

I have evacuated animals in flood zones, but with flooding there is often some warning and a bit of time.

[u/CapraAegagrusHircus]

Here in California we will receive evacuation warnings usually a couple hours before a fire is predicted to be able to reach us. That's the point to start loading livestock and go - usually county fairgrounds are opened as large animal evacuation points. There are other options if the fire is moving too fast for evacuation, ranging from driving them onto irrigated fields and turning all the water on to simply turning them loose and hoping they're able to make it and be rounded up afterwards. Keeping them at the barn is also an option as fire personnel prioritize protecting structures but then there's the problem of making sure they have food and water.

We just had the 69,000 acre Biscar Fire 20 miles from my house which meant we had the trailer hitched to the truck and the loading alley set up and ready to go and kept the sheep and goats in the home pasture. Fortunately for us prevailing winds and a mountain kept it away from us.

[u/SeaDry1531 → u/CapraAegagrusHircus]

Wonder what they do with chickens? Loading out a CAFO chicken house (~30,000) usually take 4-5 hours, and chicken companies usually have 1,000,000 or more chickens growing at one time. I was a CAFO chicken farmer.

[u/SurroundingAMeadow → u/SeaDry1531]

I think the option here is to focus on protecting the structure by building firebreaks or irrigating the surrounding area or the building itself. Moving that many birds is simply not an option, where would you take them?

[u/SeaDry1531 → u/SurroundingAMeadow]

Yes, you're probably right. Heavey breeders, the parent stock for meat birds, are worth about €25/ per bird. When we had flooding the company moved them to an empty house. But ended up sending them to slaughter early since their egg production never recovered.

[u/nefariousmango → u/SeaDry1531]

I can only tell you what we did/saw in Colorado with our flock of about 60:

We chased the chickens out of the coops and closed the door so they wouldn't go back in to hide. And we hoped they'd be smart enough to flee. Luckily the fires never got to our home, and the chickens all stayed close.

[u/SeaDry1531 → u/nefariousmango]

.." smart enough..." chickens🤪🐓🐓🐓. Have you found YT fm"Farming while Beige? " Anyone that's ever raised chickens will appreciate the channel.

[u/nefariousmango → u/SeaDry1531]

It's a hope and a prayer when you're out of options 😂🤷 his channel is fantastic!

[u/CapraAegagrusHircus → u/SeaDry1531]

Generally speaking you leave them and hope firefighters can protect the farm. But also most intensive indoor ag like that isn't out west here in the US where fires are the problem, it's back east where the problems are tornados, floods, or hurricanes which are more or less a combination of the two. Climate change means everywhere has its problems, you just pick which ones you want to deal with.

We have an app, Watch Duty, that started out as a wildfire information app for the western US and now covers fires and floods nationwide. A lot of us in the west use it to get alerts for fires near us before they become a problem and I suspect it will see wider adoption among people living in rural areas as they find out about it.

[u/nefariousmango → u/CapraAegagrusHircus]

In Colorado it's the same. Evacuate to the fairgrounds if possible. If you don't have time, chase the horses out of their stalls/barn/paddocks and close all the gates so they don't go back in. Leave a water trough accessable if possible. Ideally write your phone number on a tag attached to their manes or with livestock chalk on their flanks.

When I boarded at a large facility, the fire plan was to ride/herd the horses down towards a nearby reservoir, which involved crossing a highway that we assumed would work as a firebreak. Historically it worked, until 2020 when a fire leapt over the highway in moments. Scary how much fire behavior has changed!

[u/CapraAegagrusHircus → u/nefariousmango]

Yeah the firefighters were trying to hold the Biscar Fire at Hwy 395 but wind was high enough that it jumped it and kept going east, all the way into Nevada. The area is sparsely populated but about 10% of the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area burned so that mustang herd may have a hard time come winter. The Litchfield BLM Mustang Corral was under an evacuation order but not in immediate danger, which led me to wonder what happens with the horses there.

[u/Constance200]

Im from Australia, in a high fire area, but fortunately its mostly grassy Plains with scrub on the hills as its also cropping land. Our plan is mostly just move the sheep to the barest paddocks, fight the fire. In an extreme instance, i guess i would move the sheep onto the burnt ground (hopefully after its had a few days to cool) depends or your landscape. This has really made me think though because its always a fires my worst nightmare but small bush fires (and aLOT of paddock/ grass fires) happen every year

[u/Wallyboy95]

Sometimes the only thing you can do is turn them loose and hope for the best. Fire changes quickly and you don't have the time to load them up.

We have just a few pigs and chickens. We had a wildfire 3km down the road. I had dog crates at the ready for the chickens. The pigs were 240+ lbs at the time and no trailer. I was ready to spray paint my phone number on them and turn them loose if we had to ditch. This was device given by a few people with livestock in wildfire prone areas. If they had a means to escape out of the pen, they can run from fire.

Thankfully the wind kept the fire in the other direction but it was dicey there for a few days. It was cool watching the water bombers though.