Ranchers in and around Clinton are fuming with provincial wildfire management’s decision to back burn areas near the Elephant Hill wildfire earlier this week.
Cattle rancher Greg Nyman says he had four hours to check on his 7,000 hectare property and 120 cows, but he says on his way there he was trapped because wildfire staff began to back burn the area around one of the exits.
“I got to the south end of my unit and they started what they termed a “test burn” on top of the mountain,” he says.
“I missed it by just a couple minutes and that was the route I’d planned on taking out and they basically closed that with these test fires.”
“I went through about two kilometers on burned timber.”
“I didn’t get off the mountain until approximately 1:15 – an hour and 15 minutes back through the fire zone, back through the fire. Which wasn’t ideally safe coming in, but I threw safety aside in concern for my cows going in there to try and get some out, and just to try and see if any were still alive.”
Ranchers in the area want compensation saying the back burns cost them their land and livestock.
The Ministry of Forests says people can be compensated for “avoidable damage caused by fire control by government.”
However, each claim is decided on a case-by-case basis, with landowners required to file a claim and show proof of loss.