Wildfire a blessing for Gardiner

Mark Gardiner calls the 2017 Starbuck fire one of the greatest blessings of his life.

Gardiner and his family survived the fire after the Gardiner Angus Ranch near Ashland, Kansas, took a direct hit on March 6, 2017. Mark helps run the operation with brothers Greg and Garth and their families.

“We’ve got a lot of community members here that might disagree, but I think it’s been a blessing for our community to learn and understand what this place means to all of us,” Gardiner said.

He spoke at the American Farm Bureau Federation tour of western Kansas on May 8 at the Gardiner Ranch’s marketing center. He detailed the Angus operation to attendees as well as what happened during and after the Starbuck wildfire.

Admittedly Gardiner still gets a little emotional at times, but it’s not about losing his house, grass or cattle.

“It’s about what you folks did for us. God sent you folks to help us and they came. They kept coming and kept coming,” he said. “And they still are helping today.”

Gardiner said in Clark County there are about 620,000 acres, and the Starbuck fire consumed nearly 480,000 of those. Facing the 60- to 80-foot flames, Gardiner stared the fire straight in the face.

“When you see that coming at you, you start to realize what matters in life,” Gardiner said.

During the fire his wife, Eva, and brother, Greg, were trying to move horses around out of the path of the fire.

“It probably wasn’t the wisest decision we ever made, but we went down and the Lord led us out of there,” he said. “I’m proud to be here to visit with you today.”

The community helped ease the blow to Gardiner and many of the other ranchers in Clark County who suffered losses. With only 2,000 people in the area, compared to 60,000 head of cattle—cattle out number people 30 to 1.

“I don’t mind telling people we like it that way. It’s a pretty good deal,” he said. “But 85 percent of the income from this community comes from livestock. And the balance of it comes from the crops and there won’t be many crops this year.”

Ashland and Clark County are agricultural communities, with five of the largest taxpayers in the county essentially losing everything to the Starbuck fire. About 10,000 head of cattle were lost, 30 homes and seven people lost their lives, Gardiner said.

“If I could stress, that could have been many people in this community,” he said. “God gave us the strength to go on. We don’t always understand, but there are seven families that don’t have their family members today and that still hurts.”

The monetary losses and loss of infrastructure are staggering for Gardiner. There was about 4,100 miles of fence lost in the county and with a replacement cost of essentially $10,000 a mile, to replace fencing was $41 million. The cattle loss was staggering as well—95 percent of the cattle lost were from nine ranches.

“We lost all of our grass and about 600 cows,” Gardiner said. “And the reality of all that was they were all pregnant. You can kind of take that times two.”

In all, the Gardiner Ranch lost 260 miles of fence, and finally finished replacing it in February.

“We hired professional crews. We had to do what we had to do,” he said. “But 260 miles is a lot of fence.”

He remains thankful it was only cattle they had to bury and there were no human lives lost on his ranch.

“I have a theory in our cattle business,” he said. “You guys remember the Dorito commercials with Jay Leno? If you’ll buy these Doritos, I’ll make some more. Well, that’s the thing it is with these cows. We can replace the cows.”

Gardiners and many others had help. From the banks in Ashland to the Ashland Community Foundation and Kansas Livestock Association, as well as many other individuals who sent help.

“Our community is so much farther along than I ever thought we could be,” Gardiner said. “God prepared me for these things. We looked at our family, and we looked at our many blessings, we didn’t lose a single thing. We did not lose one single thing.

The morning following the fire, Gardiner and his ranch crew spent the next two days shooting cattle. In one pasture they found a cow with a newborn calf, and she “kind of became our symbol for life,” he said.

Following the fire he knew they had a monstrous amount of work to be done but wasn’t sure what he needed to do first. People came to help the Gardiners and many more clean up and start rebuilding. At the time, Gardiner and several community leaders thought the intensity of the situation would run out in a week and the Clark County people would be on their own.

“But that never happened,” Gardiner said. “There were crews that came here and stayed here and worked here all through the summer and continued to help. That’s the blessing that I talk about.”

It’s really about the relationships that have been built.

“Nobody expected to be made whole and quite frankly nobody’s been made whole,” Gardiner said. “But my goodness, have we been given a lot of relief from all over the United States.”

Following the fire it took several weeks before a rain was had. Gardiner said at one point it “looked like Black Sunday” his dad used to talk about.

“I remember thinking to myself this could be pretty tough if it didn’t rain,” he said. “And from that point forward, until Sept. 25, we had 22 inches of rain. Sometimes we have to be patient waiting for that next rain, but the Lord provided.”

Gardiners were also provided and opportunity to improve their infastructure when replacing fences, and he even told his family they have better fences today than he’s ever had in his life.

“When you have to replace the entire infrastructure of a 48,000-acre ranch, it gave us some opportunity to make some changes,” Gardiner said.

In one final story, Gardiner told of one pasture that held 226 head of cows at the time of the fire. After the fire burned, about 24 remained salvageable. Gardiner and his crew had a couple rules when looking for cattle.

“Our rules were if they can walk, and they can see, they can eat and drink, we owe them a chance,” he said. “Those cows became very important to us.”

The cows’ will to live and the opportunity they were given to live, helps Gardiner see the situation in a little different light.

“If you look at the relationship between American agriculture and God’s people it’s all good,” Gardiner said. “It’s all good.”

The Gardiners have had opportunities to evaluate their conservation of the range and their familial relationships and work on them a little more.

“We have the responsibility to do things better than we have before,” he said. “You want to give your children an opportunity to be educated, an opportunity to flourish in what ever they choose to do. But ultimately you want to have that opportunity to leave this place better than before.”

For more information about the Gardiner Ranch visit www.gardinerangus.com.

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 [email protected].