The smoke started showing up in the early part of July. A lightening strike had started something somewhere on the other side of the mountains. Just to be safe the residents of Saranagati Village had been put on "alert". After two years of drought the overgrown forests surrounding the valley were very dry. And then the heat wave. Day after day of hot sunny weather, 40, 39, 41, 38...
In the evening of July 17th there was a seminar held in the outdoor picnic area at the community school. A few provincial fire officials had gathered the local devotee residents to talk about "firesafing" our homes. The talk was friendly, casual and lighthearted. Then a tower of flames appeared on the top of a mountain on the western side of the valley. As we collectively stared at the fire one of the officials received a cell call. As he spoke the flame tower became more of a wave of fire and began to flow down the side of the mountain. It roared, almost like an ocean. The official ended his call. "You have to evacuate the valley immediately" he said. We had arranged with a rancher neighbor who owns an F-350 and a 30' horse trailer to pick up our cows in the event of an evacuation.
When we phoned him he was up in the mountains trying to save someone's horses, the connection was bad, but eventually we understood that he was coming, but that it would probably be a few hours. "I'm not leaving without the cows" Udarakirti said. Kava, our daughter, remembered that Brandon has a similar truck and trailer. Brandon is the son of a former teacher at our school, and had been a classmate of Kava's some 15 years ago. Kava phoned Brandon and he said that he would hitch up his trailer and be there within 30 minutes. Oddly enough even though the local ranchers raise their cows only to sell them for slaughter, they nonetheless understand the urgency of saving animals from wildfires.
When Brandon arrived he backed his trailer up to the front of the red barn. The cows were nervous and confused as we chased them into the barn from the back door and forced them out the front and into the trailer, closing the door behind them. Bala Krishna prabhu had made an arrangment with another beef rancher to keep our cows in one of about a dozen pens that are normally used for sorting and separating cows that are being sent off for slaughter, that takes place in the fall and so the pens were all empty. Here they would have food and water but no shelter from the sun. It was already dark by the time we got the cows to safety. After that we continued on to Cache Creek where Emergency Services was arranging for motels and food vouchers for the 50-60 devotees who had been evacuated. In the distance we could see the glow of Venables Valley, the entire mountain range was on fire, we wondered if there would be anyting left.
Two days later we were informed that the fire was spreading towards the Ashcroft Ranch and that the area where we had sheltered the cows was now being evacuated. We were told that there would be someone there to help us. What we weren't told was that the other 11 pens were now overflowing with beef cows from ranchers all around who were also evacuating their animals When we arrived the disturbed mooing from hundreds of cows filled the air. Amidst this chaos the 8 cows from Ahimsa Goshala sat separtely peacefully chewing their cud. some of the daughters and wives from the rancher community were sitting with our cows and petting them. One woman, assuming that we were in the business of selling cows, offered to purchase Revati right on the spot. She was willing to pay top dollar.
When it came time to load our cows onto the transportation trailer the scene turned a little dark. We had to stand to the side and watch as the cowboys used their electric prods to force our cows to move. The cows had never experienced electric shocks, with wide, angry eyes they tried to charge back at the cowboys and it became a bit of a battle. Eventually they were loaded and on their way, this time, by Lord Krishna's grace, to a much nicer temporary home. Our oldest daughter Janaki lives in Pinantan Lake near Kamloops. Her neighbor Vince has some fenced acreage with an empty barn and a small creek running through it. That's where the cows were settled and that's where they stayed for another few weeks while we all waited for the order to return.
On the return day the same driver who had helped force our cows from the Ashcroft ranch watched as we peacefully led the cows onto his trailer. Udarakirti had explained to them that we were all going home, and so one by one they marched down the loading chute and jumped into the back of the trailer, no electric prodding required.
In the end our personal losses were minimal, especially compared to others. The field of cut hay, ready to be baled and brought to the barn was all burned, 200-300 bales worth, and the 2" poly pipe from our new solar irrigation system was melted. Other than that all is well and quite frankly I am amazed how Krishna made so many arrangements for the comfort of His cows.
