Buzzard wildfire near Burns leaves more dead and burned cattle in its wake

It's before dawn Tuesday but the mosquitoes are already up and biting as Bill Wilber, his two brothers, George and Pat Wilber, and their nephew, Casey Wilber, load four horses into a long aluminum trailer. Eight days ago, a wildfire — one of five that grew together to form the Buzzard complex about 45 miles southeast of Burns — raced across the rangeland above the Drewsey Field Ranch, scattering the family herd of about 750 cattle and calves. "We had lots of lightning, but we also had lots of rain,'' Bill Wilber says. "We really didn't anticipate the intensity of the fires. It just went on and on. There were not enough assets, not enough firefighters to get a handle on it." The complex has blackened nearly 400,000 acres of sagebrush and bunchgrass on steep, rocky hillsides, hop-scotching across the high desert in a mosaic. It's the largest range fire since 2012's Long Draw fire that burned 557,648 acres in southeastern Oregon – considered the most extensive in Oregon's modern history. The Buzzard complex – named for local landmark Buzzard Butte -- spared some areas, but other spots burned so hot and fast that 100-year-old junipers went up like Roman candles, a circular carpet of ash at their base. The cattle took off -- many trapped by the fire and losing their bearings. The Wilbers set out to find their livestock and inventory the damage. In the days before, they found seven cows and 13 calves that had succumbed to smoke or flames. They had to euthanize two other injured cows...more