I have been asked to share some of my personal thoughts on wildfire and specifically, the use of livestock in proactively managing wildfire risk on our rangelands. First, I should let you know that I have a diverse background spanning from a retired insurance broker to working a large commercial cow-calf range operation, to now working a range cow-calf yearling operation with my wife and sons. We use our cattle to manage an ecological reserve and wildlife area through rotational grazing for wildlife habitat maintenance and restoration, soil health and wildfire fuel removal on a historic Spanish land grant in the East County of San Diego. Not necessarily in that order. But I think you will understand the point of my background. Also, not bragging, but completely humbled by all the learning I received and still receive from others in this area as well.
Wildfires in 2003 and 2007 were a complete disaster for our county. They were, at that time, a couple of the largest fires in California. However, California has managed to significantly exceed those figures since then. The full extent of complete wildfire disasters, both to ranching operations and as a major public safety issue, became really apparent to us during a wildfire in 2017. We were about to lose all our feed for the year when the wind changed direction at the last minute before jumping across the highway onto our pastures, saving our range and feed. After the 2017 fire, I visited our local CAL FIRE office to say thank you and to ask what we were able to do on our end to reduce our wildfire risk.
The 2017 Gate Fire
Although the two wildfires mentioned in this article started in the middle of the property, the fire captain mentioned prioritizing grazing the pastures that are along the highway first and then graze to the middle of the ranch. He indicated that most fires are started by the highway and move into the vegetation from that point and grow to be big problems quickly, especially if there is a lot of wind.
So, simply put, proactively creating defensible space on our lease with our cattle became part of our annual wildfire grazing plan since we already had our rotational pastures set up. Now, not that I really wanted to test this wildfire grazing plan, but the wildfire in January was the big test that we passed. I just didn’t think about having to be evacuated so that CAL FIRE could fight the fire on the ungrazed range on the other side of my grazed pasture fence and use my place for an incident command center. Our adrenaline was pumping the entire day, evacuating cows and calves and then our yearlings. I dreamed about it that night as well. You get temporary wildfire PTSD from all the action. It was not a good night of sleep at all.
2025 Border Fire
The reality is that we were very fortunate and didn’t lose any cattle like some of the other producers’ nightmare stories you have read. We had a few calves get weaned early, but overall, we were safe due to all the sweat we put in moving cattle around to pastures we grazed already. In summary, we don’t all need to have a Ph.D. in math to figure out that proactively managing large rangeland is substantially less expensive (even if there must be a one-time expense of infrastructure to make it work) than the huge overwhelming expense occurring of reactive wildfire fighting. What bothers me more is that I am seeing wildfires that used to be just on large rural rangelands that are now starting in rural areas and moving into the urban areas, significantly threatening public safety along with massive property damage occurring.
During our 2003 and 2007 wildfires, insurance companies were investing in more firefighting engines and air support with the understanding that if they could save more homes in a wildfire, they would be ahead of the game financially after paying for new firefighting equipment and not having to pay out as much money in claims. Now, wildfire-area consumers simply get their insurance non-renewed and are forced to turn to the state’s insurer of last resort, where they face premiums five to eight times higher, with less coverage and annual increases as wildfire claims continue to be paid out. So, we as consumers, are now paying for the devastation of these wildfires. It’s a downward economic spiral that we are in and it’s not just happening in our state now.
The range before cattle enter and after cattle have left. High-dollar homes pictured in background. It is estimated that 130 head cleared and just under 120,000 lbs. of dry matter consumed in a 30-day period.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I understand not all operations are set up like ours, but I do know that producers are very creative in problem solving on their own operations just from onsite visits to other operations and seeing the outstanding thinking they have done. It’s just super impressive. However, I do feel that we as producers need to look at our own operations, no matter the size or scale, to identify changes we can make for proactive wildfire management that don’t create a major negative financial impact. It’s not the whole answer to wildfires, but we are leveraging ourselves in a business that has many risks from wildfires, drought, markets, etc. The list goes on. Using our livestock to manage this risk just seems like a practical way to start.
We as producers can also do so much. It is still important that we communicate and educate about the environmental advantages of grazing and the use of livestock as a practical, proactive management tool to local, state and federal governments, as well as other entities, and encourage them to rely on up-to-date, science-based information when making grazing management decisions. — John M. Austel, 4J Horse & Livestock Co., Jamul, CA
