1. Oregon Cattlemen’s Association detail

Cattle will be lost to eastern Oregon wildfires.

Losses have occurred already, though it is still too early to quantify them, said Matt McElligott, a North Powder-based rancher who is president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association board.

“It’s too early to definitively say the economic impact and how many head we lost,” McElligott said. “There are rumors out there.”

Cattle losses in the hundreds and possibly the thousands are possible, he said. Because of the number of big, fast-moving fires on rangeland, “I’m pretty confident it’s going to be in the thousands.”

Six of the state’s biggest fires are in the eastern region, where most of the cattle are based, McElligott said. Most cattle — the state’s top commodity in gross dollar sales — are in Malheur, Baker and Harney counties.

“This is a big economic loss to Oregon, a loss to individual producers and a large emotional drain,” McElligott said. “When the smoke clears, it’s going to be pretty tough.”

OCA is setting up a fire relief fund that is receiving donations.

“These ranchers who are burned out are going to need relief for feed for cattle, equipment, fencing supplies, and a place to go with them,” McElligott said.

The association also seeks places unaffected by fire that can be made available to receive displaced cattle, he said. Examples include federal Conservation Reserve Program ground where it is available for emergency grazing, open U.S. Forest Service or U.S. Bureau of Land Management grazing allotments and private pastures.

Ranchers are communicating, McElligott said. In addition to gathering and moving cattle, they are discussing finding people and equipment to fight fires or dig protection lines where needed.

“It’s all hands on deck right now,” he said.

As for moving the cattle from fire-affected areas, “we are trying to gather them right now,” McElligott said. Since the grazing allotments are large, with 5,000- to 10,000-acre pasture sizes, “it takes days.”

A common destination for cattle is a truck headed to a ranch’s home base or to other areas not impacted by fire, he said. Fair and rodeo grounds and other winter grazing ground are examples.

“Right now it’s just: Get them out of harm’s way,” McElligott said.

His Grant County ranch was put under a level-3 (go) evacuation order late July 22.

McElligott hopes he does not lose a house, barn and corral, he said.

But in the short term, “I’m shipping cattle home today,” he said July 23, when more than 60% of his Grant County herd was affected by fire. “Instead of cutting hay fields and baling as winter feed, now it’s going to be my ‘today’ feed.”

Ranchers who have been “burned out” look for cattle, including injured individuals that can be saved or must be euthanized, McElligott said. “It’s an emotional toll.”

Large, human-caused fires are a problem because “resources right now are stretched thin, so it’s hard to get containment on any of them,” he said. “That’s why they’re growing so fast and getting so big.”