Sounds like you are on it, as I suspected you would be! :-) You're right about the smoke- one of our evacuation centers ended up with more smoke and particulate matter in the air than the horses in holding still on the mountain.
Let us know when the crisis is passed! We'll be thinking of you!
Today is fire weather here- VERY warm strong wind blowing. Not good. Time to go get the sprinkler system primed.
Chris
On 06/27/11, Una Smith<una.smith@att.net> wrote:
Thanks for all the good thoughts and tips, everyone. We are in high desert here, so the only pasture is irrigated fields down in the river bottoms. There is no pasture whatsoever in my county, only dry dirt paddocks. There are about 300 horses in the county, and 250 of them live in a community stables area beside the county rodeo ground. This year, due to drought, the normally weed choked buffer zones between the stable lots are mostly bare dirt. Fences are mostly welded pipe and/or woven wire. On my lot, shelter is a post and beam run in shed with galvanized steel roof and siding, unpainted. My lot has no junk on it, and I remove the weeds and manure for composting. The lot is defensible space at its best.
This morning we had word the main horse evacuation shelter near Santa Fe NM, several hundred stalls, is almost full already. The Santa Fe County Rodeo Ground is receiving horses too. There are secondary and tertiary destinations as well. I have lots of places I can take our horses to, and the trailer is ready to go, but the horses may be safer and have less smoke exposure where they are now here on the mountain, rather than down in the valley. Smoke inhalation is already a concern down there, and the rodeo ground has historic wooden shedrow barns aka fire traps.
In our area identification of horses is not difficult. The New Mexico Livestock Board has a transportation permit scheme with photo ID and written description that includes brands, scars, and other distinctive markings. All our horses have permits already.
In our area the most important equipment to evacuate with a horse is a water bucket.