Rural Wyomingites — AKA Hotshot Hillbillies — Help Save 1887 Double Rafter Ranch

PARKMAN — The Double Rafter Ranch’s 1890s red barn is still standing on Pass Creek Road near Parkman in northern Wyoming, saved from the Elk Fire by a mix that is part miracle and part moxie on the part of firefighters and what some area residents have taken to calling the “Hillbilly Hotshots.”

The latter are ranchers who have outfitted their own trucks with water tanks, determined to patrol their ranches and neighbors’ homes for embers carried by wind far from the fire’s frontlines. They do what they can to protect their land and their homes.

Firefighters have tried to discourage the practice, saying that it can result in diverted fire resources when someone untrained is in the area, but in this case, Double Rafter Ranch residents Chelsie Warner and Jill Kerns say they’re convinced this is one time when the Hillbilly Hotshots helped avert a tragedy.

The Elk Fire has been described as "unprecedented" and "unpredictable" by longtime firefighters, who say they've never seen a fire so active and volatile this late in the fire season. It's burned nearly 75,000 acres along the face of the Bighorn Mountains just west of the small Sheridan County towns of Dayton and Parkman. It's about 10% contained, but remains a threat to area homes and property.

Second Evacuation Was For Real

Warner and Kerns were forced to evacuate their Pass Creek homes on the Double Rafter Ranch for what was the second time late Tuesday night, Oct. 1. They had just unpacked everything when the new order came, giving them little time to grab a few essentials on their way out.

“It was pretty precious what the kids thought they needed to take with them,” Warner told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday, chuckling a little after the fact. “I mean, their favorite stuffed animal, their blankies, the dog brush and a dead dog’s collar. Like random things that were very important to them made it in the car.”

While the kids were packing up essentials, Kerns was fueling up a generator to run the family’s sprinkler system, which connects with a nearby creek.

She fired the generator up, saying a little prayer, and was grateful it didn’t take a second try to start it.

She debated taking the partially full fuel can and putting it in the garage. But she left it where it was, sitting right next to the pump. A decision that would later prove quite fortunate.

No Time To Catch The Horses

Looking around them, Warner and Kerns could see the wind was picking up.

“Every time I opened the front door, it made like a wind tunnel right there, and it was just like swirling in there,” Kerns said.

They were standing in the driveway, car packed up, discussing what was left to do, when someone from either the U.S. Forest Service or Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office came by right then.

“You guys need to get out of here now,” Warner said the man told them in no uncertain terms. “‘Get your livestock, get your stuff and go.’”

There was no time to catch the horses, they realized then.

Instead, they threw open the gates and cut the fences. They had to trust the horses’ instincts from here.

As they left Pass Creek Road for their uncle’s home, the hills around them were glowing with fire.

“The wind was just whipping water (from our sprinkler) all over,” she said.

It was so bad, she feared the sprinklers weren’t going to do much good, and the generator only had two hours of fuel.

After that, there’d be nothing keeping the area wet and safe from fire.

One Guy On A Ridge

At their uncle’s home, they tucked the children into bed, telling them that everything would be all right, even if they weren’t so sure themselves.

Then they settled into a long night of listening to the police scanner while waiting for texts from friends who were helping fight the fire, including some of their own “Hillbilly Hotshots.”

“We were getting little bits of information from (my uncle’s sons),” Warner said. “But it wasn’t until close to 3 or 4 a.m. when we actually heard anything from them.”

What they heard was heart stopping.

Firefighters were on top of the hill, digging in a fire line on what’s called Miller’s Hill. That meant the fire was very close to the Double Rafter.

“There was conflicting information on what side of the hill it was on,” Warner said. ‘At first it was on the other side — we don’t have anything to worry about. Then, no, it’s on our side.”

There was no radio traffic about structures burning at Pass Creek, though, so they kept hoping for the best.

Warner would hear later from relatives who were part of the “Hillbilly Hotshots” that he saw a lone firefighter positioned on the ridge, back-burning with a propane torch and digging with a shovel.

Kristie Thompson, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team, told Cowboy State Daily that though it may have appeared, from a distance, that the firefighter was alone, the individual on the ridge was likely a lookout.

“They will put someone up high so they can watch out,” she said. “But I can guarantee you they were there. They wouldn’t leave a man behind.”

Warner doesn’t know who the visible hotshot was, just that he was with the Flathead Hotshots, but she is grateful whether it was one guy or 100. She’s sure that their efforts, combined with the berms of dirt that had been left around the home during its construction, are what helped save their new home.

“We saw the Tatanka Hotshots here a couple of times,” Warner said. “And I don’t know if the Flathead guys are still here, but I told the Tatanka guys, ‘Hey, if you see those Flathead guys, you tell them thank you for us.’”

Houses Are Safe

The role that the Hillbilly Hotshots played in saving the rest of the ranch didn’t become clear to Warner until the next morning.

A cousin called Warner’s dad, another member of the informal Hotshot Hillbillies.

“You’re safe, he told Warner’s dad. “All the houses are safe. The barn is safe, but the fire burned down the cemetery.”

Then Warner heard from a family friend named Stephen Masters, who was also patrolling with the Hotshot Hillbillies. He told Warner he’d pulled up to her house, and the flames were right along the creek, and in the trees, going up the hill.

“It was so hot, he couldn’t do anything,” Warner said. “But he found the pump and he restarted the sprinklers before he had to get out of there because of the heat and the flames.”

He was only able to do that, though, because Kerns had left the fuel tank behind. Otherwise, he’d have had no recourse to get the sprinkler going again.

Warner and Kerns are convinced that extra two hours of sprinkler time at a crucial moment is likely what saved the rest of the ranch, particularly the red barn that was raised in 1890.

Otherwise, she can see no reason the fire didn’t continue coming down the hills for their home.

“Steven made the comment that he’d pulled out his phone to take a picture, but he didn’t want to have it be a picture of our house burning down,” Warner said. “That’s how close it was.”

Firefighting is 98% boredom, 2% Sheer Terror

Warner’s husband, Marcus, arrived Wednesday afternoon. He’s in the Navy, stationed in California. He’d already planned to come to the area on leave next week but was allowed to leave earlier because of the fire.

“The first order of business was to become members of the Hillbilly Hotshots,” Warner said.

That meant putting a water tank on the back of a truck, with a pump and a hose attached.

“They spent the whole day really 24 hours, just driving around the property, still putting out fires here on the property, because the cottonwood trees burn, and they will continue burning for months otherwise,” Warner said.

There are also firefighters patrolling for embers as well, Warner said.

“The Tatanka Hotshots were here from South Dakota and they were walking all back in there and said there’s just random places where embers were falling from the fire, like the wind was blowing, these softball sized embers,” Warner said. “And if it was dry it would catch on fire, but if it was green and wet it wouldn’t.”

Marcus, who did take firefighter training in the Navy, joked that what he learned about firefighting is that it’s “98% boredom and 2% sheer terror.”

He was with a group of 30 to 40 ranchers with water tanks on their truck, stationed along a gravel road at one point, with the job of keeping any embers from getting across the road. If the fire managed to get across the road, there were lots of fine fuels that would carry the fire off into a brand-new area with several homes and structures, including the Slack Schoolhouse.

“We were hosing down the ditches and keeping the flames down,” he said. “And then simultaneously watching behind us for any hot spots because there were embers flying. I mean they looked like fireflies. They were just all over the place.”

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.