Evacuation planning helped for some owners

By Laurelle Walsh

While many Methow Valley residents rushed to get themselves and their valuables packed and in the car on Aug. 19, for others the Twisp River Fire posed an even greater challenge: how to evacuate a large number of animals on short notice.

The folks at Sunny Pine Farm were at the usual business of tending goats and making cheese that breezy Wednesday afternoon, when they began getting phone calls from friends and neighbors about a big fire down the road.

Only a week earlier, when lightning storms began hitting the region, co-owners Tania Gonzalez Ortega and Carl Rapp discussed the possibility of evacuating the farm for the second year in a row. “We had a loose plan,” Gonzalez Ortega said, a plan that identified the properties of Teague and Ann Channing and Clay and Lindsey Ashford as safe places to move the 138 animals should the need arise, she said.

When a Level 3 evacuation notice came in from the county’s reverse 911 system, Sunny Pine’s owners and staff leapt into action.

First priority was to get the children and Rapp’s 81-year-old mother to safety. Then began the seemingly endless process of loading animals into trailers and taking them out of harm’s way. “I couldn’t tell you how many trips it took,” office manager Lindsey Ashford said.

The Sunny Pine crew had experience in the evacuation process, having moved animals off the property last summer when the Little Bridge Creek fire threatened the neighborhood. At that time Sunny Pine’s herd was smaller, and some of the animals were taken to Benson Creek, while the others were cooped up in the backyard of Gonzalez Ortega’s former Rainbow Bridge Childcare in Twisp.

Ashford knows first-hand about fire and loss. During the Carlton Complex Fire, she and her husband fought for days to protect their Gold Creek property from the flames, only to eventually lose their home in the battle.

Earlier this summer the Ashfords were able to purchase a home on 3 ½ fenced acres south of Twisp. Little did they know that months later they’d be providing housing for 30 Guernsey milking goats, 20 kids, four bucks, two milk cows and four calves. “We’d do anything to help them out,” said Ashford of her employers. “As soon as it started to happen we just went into go mode. I was so happy to be able to provide help. Everybody has been helping me for the past year,” she said.

The Sunny Pine evacuation “went smoothly, relatively speaking,” said Ashford. “But it’s exhausting, making all those decisions: Is the fire really that close? Is this really a good idea?”

Ashford’s husband, Clay, and friend Mike Doran helped load the Guernseys into trailers and drove them to the Ashfords’ place. They were forced to turn around when the fire jumped Twisp River Road at Spokane Grade, but they backtracked with the trailered animals up Buttermilk Road, past Black Pine Lake and back down Libby Creek Road.

Flames approach

Sunny Pine’s main herd of Nubian goats — the ones that produce the milk that goes into the farm’s organic cheese and yogurt — were moved the first night to pasture in the river valley below the farm, with Rapp and Sunny Pine founder Ed Welch staying behind to watch over the property. By Thursday evening Rapp could see flames coming over a ridge above the farm.

With the power out and no cell service at the farm, communication was non-existent, so when a crew showed up with a truck and trailer at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, “Carl was relieved to see us,” Ashford remembers. They loaded up the 48 Nubians plus eight La Mancha “house goats” in the dark, and moved them all to the Channings’ farm on the Twisp Flats, where the fire had by that time “blown through,” Ashford said.

In the mean time, the goats required milking. Gonzalez Ortega spent 5 ½ hours hand milking the Guernseys on Thursday, at one point posting on Facebook: “Hey if anybody knows how to hand milk goats I’m at Lindsay Ashfords place and need help.”

The second day they got two portable milking machines running. Herd manager Martha Knox and Gonzalez Ortega worked practically around the clock milking goats, moving the machines between the herds. “It was an all-day ordeal,” Gonzalez Ortega said. “We had to quickly figure out a system and routine.”

They also had about $3,000 worth of unpackaged cheese destined for markets in Seattle. Hank’s Harvest Foods offered them space in its cooler and the Twisp Valley Grange let them use its certified kitchen to package the cheese. “Because of Hank’s we were able to save the product we had ready,” and get it to market, Gonzalez Ortega said.

For Ashford, having the animals at her place for 10 days was a delight, and the whole experience “was a blessing in disguise,” she said. “I got to spend long days with Tania and Martha. It really solidified our Sunny Pine family and my feelings of commitment to this place,” she said.

Set to evacuate

Kathryn and Patrick Heim, owners of Rover’s Ranch — a home-based dog boarding facility near Twin Lakes — checked Facebook all afternoon for updates on the Twisp River Fire, and watched the growing smoke plume above Moccasin Lake Ranch. “We were set to evacuate,” Patrick Heim said.

The Heims had a frightening experience last summer, when the Rising Eagle Road Fire came within one-quarter mile of their place and they had to race to get themselves and their boarders out safely. This time they had a plan in place, which included a call list of people who could come help, and pre-determined “safety zones” around the valley where they could take the dogs.

“We had 25 leashes hanging on the fence, ready to go,” Heim said. They had learned about Twisp and Winthrop’s evacuation orders, but it was when they started seeing flames on the ridge above Moccasin Lake that they decided it was unsafe to stay there, Heim said. They loaded five vehicles with 14 kennel dogs, plus their own four dogs, and took them to the safety of Three Rivers Dog Training up the Chewuch Valley.

Around midnight, after all but five of the boarded dogs had been picked up by their owners, the Heims decided the animals in their charge would be more secure out of the valley. “Our business is different because we have live clients who are in our care,” said Heim. So in the middle of the night, with nine dogs and a cat between them, the Heims drove two cars across the mountains to Seattle, where they encamped at a friend’s house for several days before returning to the valley.

They have since ordered a custom cargo van, which will give them “flexibility to flee a fast-moving wildfire,” Heim said. “If everyone’s busy getting themselves out and help is not available, we need to be able to transport the animals on our own,” he said.

Good travelers

At Moccasin Lake Ranch, while head trainer Annie Budiselich was out moving cows to safer pasture, staff members and horse owners back at the barn were making plans to evacuate. “We had been watching the flames and wondering how fast it was moving,” Budiselich said. “When I got back, Tulie [Budiselich] had figured out what trailers, trucks and people we had, and had assembled a plan.”

Budiselich felt that the barn area was safe, being surrounded by acres of irrigated fields and gravel driveways, but escape routes were her real worry. “We decided if we can do it, why not? It wasn’t like we had to choose which horses stayed or went,” Budiselich said.

With dark approaching, Budiselich and five other volunteers loaded the ranch’s 15 horses into five trailers and drove out of the valley. “It turned out it was fortuitous that our horses are all really good travelers,” she said.

Budiselich called on her connections at Appleatchee Ranch in Wenatchee, where she knew there was extra stabling that is used during horse shows. “They said, ‘Please stay as long as you need to. We’re not going to charge you,’” Budiselich recalls.

The Moccasin Lake crew unloaded the horses in the dark and ate mini-mart food in the Appleatchee parking lot as the sun rose Thursday morning. The horses were stuck in their stalls until somebody could take them out, so volunteers stayed with the horses over the next few days and took them out in shifts to exercise in the corrals.

Because of the valley’s unhealthy air quality, Budiselich and the owners decided to keep the horses away for a full week. Some horses were taken by their owners to western Washington. “Horses don’t have any choice in the matter. They can’t come inside when it’s smoky,” Budiselich said. “When you’re taking care of other people’s animals you almost feel more responsible,” she said.

When asked if there were any lessons learned during the evacuation, Budiselich said, “Yes, I had one thought: Maybe it’s time to get a bigger trailer.”