Flaming Cow Flops: Grassfires on the Shortgrass Steppe by Dr. Margaret Bickers

     None of the Anglos moving to the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle, lured by cheap grass and un-stocked ranges, could have fully anticipated the hazards of grass fires. Everyone knew that the plains burned, either accidently or deliberately. But imagine the frustration of cowboys as they tried to beat out roaring, stinging flames, flailing at the burning grass with wet brooms and gunnysacks, endangering their horses to pull beef drags and chain drags across the licking tongues of the grassfire, only to watch a flaming cow pie sail or roll past on the high wind, skipping into the unburned thatch and turning their efforts to naught! What could a man do but curse and run, trying to beat out the new fire spot?

     Grassfires are part of the life cycles of the North American grasslands. The tall-grass prairies developed with regular burning as part of their lifecycle. The grasses and forbs (legumes, other flowering plants that are not grasses) develop deep roots so that they can survive drought and fire. The flames clear away dead material and return nitrogen, carbon and other elements to the soil while keeping back the advance of brush and trees. The tall-grass prairies are pyrophylic “fire loving,” and need periodic fires to stay healthy. Short grass steppes, such as the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle, cope with fire but did not require fire as much as the tall-grasses do. Instead, the dominant plant species, buffalo grass and the gramas, adapted to heavy grazing.

     However, once the grasses grew tall enough, as might happen after a wet year or if the bison did not graze heavily, then they would burn and burn quickly. Such fires helped “clean” the grasslands by consuming animal waste and carcasses, dead grass, and insects such as ticks as well as living stems. Rains often followed the fires in spring and soon a bright green carpet covered the charred landscape as the grasses returned, thick and healthy.

     Such fires could be accidental or deliberately set. Lightning ignited many fires. American Indians occasionally started grassfires by failing to put out their campfires. On other occasions they burned the plains behind them in order to deprive enemies of forage or to delay pursuit. Fires were used to steer or drive buffalo herds as well. Unlike the peoples living farther east, the Comanches and Plains Apaches do not seem to have practiced regular spring grass burning.

     The Anglo-Texas ranchers who moved to the High Plains fought fires instead of setting them. Range fires consumed valuable grass, killed and scattered livestock, and destroyed expensive fences. If someone spotted smoke, everyone available stopped what they were doing and went to fight the fire. Cowboys’ weapons included wet gunnysacks and wet brooms, their leather chaps and wet blankets to beat the flames out. Two horse-drawn tools were beef drags and chain drags. A beef drag was a dead cow, usually a yearling, cut in half and dragged behind a horse to smother the flames and break up the grass. Once purebred cattle became more common, the beef drag was replaced with a chain drag. The chain drag consisted of a number of chains attached to a metal bar, again drug behind a horse to beat out the flames and break up the grass fuel. Cowboys never attacked the main flame front if they could help it, instead working from the sides of the fire to contain it while plowing firebreaks ahead of the blaze. Over time, firebreaks became a standard part of ranch management and the XIT and other ranch expense books included the yearly cost of having strips plowed to deprive any possible fires of fuel.

     Range fires could be huge. One of the largest charged down the plains in December 1884. It probably began in the Arkansas River valley in Kansas, possibly from train brakes sparking and igniting the grass. The flames crossed the Cimarron and Beaver rivers, devouring the pastures of the XIT. Cowboys from across the northern Panhandle fought the flames but could not stop the fire. Only after the blaze reached the Canadian River and a blizzard combined with a wind-shift halted the conflagration. The XIT cowboys rounded up their surviving herds and pushed the cattle into New Mexico, where they could find at least a little grass.

     In 1904 another fire chased XIT cowboys, this time south of the Canadian Breaks. A fire broke out on Quay and Curry counties in New Mexico during the hay harvest. West winds drove the flames onto the Yellowhouse Division of the XIT, eventually burning a swath up to forty miles wide and sixty miles deep into Texas. The ranch managers shifted their cattle into the Canadian River valley pastures because there was no other grass for them.

     Sometimes the causes of grass fires must have caused head scratching as well as cursing. After a rash of mysterious ignitions on the northern part of the XIT, the cowboy John Arnot found a place where another ranch hand had accidentally dropped some strike-anywhere matches. As Arnot watched, dumbfounded, a bird pecked at the match head and ignited a fire that the Scotsman promptly put out. On another occasion sunlight refracting through drops of water acted just like magnifying glasses, starting a small blaze. Cowboys and ranchers warned new settlers never to use their stoves during high winds because the embers could be sucked up the stovepipe and start fires. Pioneer Crosby County settler Hank Smith recalled someone setting a fire in the shinnery oaks on the eastern edge of the Caprock in order to smoke out some wild hogs. Instead he destroyed thousands of acres with the fire that resulted.

     Ranchers and settlers did all they could to prevent fires or to keep them from consuming more than a few acres, and after the 1900s they usually succeeded. However, this success came with unintended consequences. One reason for the spread of mesquite in eastern New Mexico and the Texas plains was the lack of burning. Young mesquite trees are sensitive to fire and regular burns had kept them in check. A combination of heavy grazing by domestic cattle, drought that hurt the grasses more than the mesquite, and fire suppression allowed the bush to spread over larger and larger parts of the plains, turning the native into a nuisance.

     Grass fires remain part of life in the Panhandle and South Plains. Controlled burns, where and when possible, reduce the fuel load and encourage new grass growth. When drought stalks the steppes and the wind rises, the call of “fire!” still brings cowboys and ranchers (and shop owners, waitresses and other volunteers) rushing to wield wet brooms, water-soaked sacks and high-pressure hoses against the flickering foe.

Sources:

J. Evetts Haley, The XIT Ranch of Texas and the Early Days of the Llano Estacado. New Edition. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953.

Josiah Gregg. Commerce of the Prairies. ed. Max L. Moorhead. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954.

Stephen Pyne. Fire in America: A Cultural history of Wildland and Rural Fire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.

Steven Archer, “Woody Plant Encroachment into Southwestern Grasslands and Savannas: Rates, Patterns and Proximate Causes,” in Ecological Implications of Livestock Herbivory in the West eds. Martin Vavra, William A. Laycock, and Rex D. Piper. Denver: Society for Range Management, 1994.

James H. Gunnerson, “Grass Fires on the Southern Plains,” West Texas Historical Association Yearbook 5 (1929).

Bill Arp Oden. Early Days on the Texas – New Mexico Plains. Canyon, TX: Palo Duro Press, 1965.

The Stayer (Canyon, TX), 1901-1908 at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, TX.

John Arnot “Prairie Fires,” in “Prairie Fires” Manuscript/Interview File, Panhandle Plains Historical Museum.