Every three days, Kathleen Sullivan Kelley hauls water from the town of Meeker to fill a 500-gallon tank at her ranch in Rio Blanco County. Kelley’s horses used to drink from ponds on the property, but there’s no longer any surface water, and she and her husband, Reed, sold the last of the 200 cows they once raised. Kelley, 71, is concerned that the ranch could eventually be cut off from the city water source due to worsening drought.
A year ago, the Lee Fire tore through the Kelleys’ property, sparing their concrete house but destroying miles of trees, as well as all their fencing, plus several buildings and old granaries from a former homesteading community on the ranch. After being forced to evacuate, the Kelleys returned home 60 days later to falling ash and more than 75 years worth of destroyed infrastructure, she said.
“Our (weather) conditions have changed so much during my lifetime,” Kelley said. “Now three-quarters of the year is fire season. We’re watching for fire all the time. That’s our life now. We’re constantly thinking about fire mitigation.”…