It was business as usual for Dallas May on the morning of April 22, 2022, until the radio crackled to life: High wind warning, gusts to 70 miles per hour. Minutes later, he heard a second alert: Fire, Sandy Creek drainage.
As the third-generation owner of the sprawling May Ranch in Lamar, Colorado — 18,000 acres of high desert rangeland supporting 800 head of purebred Limousin beef cattle — he knew what that combination meant: trouble. “We’re talking 4000-foot elevation, high desert, low humidity. Gusts like that can ground airplanes,” recounts May. He ordered his crew to cut fences, freeing cattle to seek shelter on their own. “Not how we like to do it, but better than having them trapped.”
The flames proved him right, scorching 12 miles in three hours on their way to burning some 9,000 acres. “It was the right call,” May reflects. “At that rate of spread, with a head fire, you have zero chance of catching it. So, we abandoned the suppression attempt and focused on getting everything living out.”…