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Joseph Sill and his wife, Heidi, own a ranch on Highway 166. Sill says his family has owned the ranch for generations.
“We’ve seen a million fires but I’ve never seen anything like this ever,” Sill said.
The couple was checking on their cattle for the first time Saturday morning following the start of the Gifford Fire the day prior.
“It smoked us completely,” Sill said. “As you can see, there’s no feed left.”
Their ranch around 30 miles outside Santa Maria spans both sides of the highway. Heidi Sill says one side burned just weeks ago in the Madre Fire and now the other side has also burned.
“We moved all of our cows from this side of the road over here because at least they'd have grass,” Heidi Sill said. “All the fences on the back side burned up. We did that on Monday. This happened yesterday.”
Heidi Sill says some of their cattle died in the fire, and most, if not all, that did survive have burn injuries.
Meanwhile, Flemming Bertelsen, a Los Padres National Forest public information officer, says they are utilizing what they learned from the Madre Fire to more efficiently fight this fire and save what land they can.
“This time around, I think we're more ready,” Bertelsen said. “We have access to some of these gates that we kind of had to problem-solve getting through. The process is a lot more streamlined and efficient.”
Heidi Sill is grateful for the support they've received.
“Community is everything,” she said. “They stayed up all night to help us. People, friends of ours have offered to bring dozers all day today. We've been getting calls. Unfortunately, the damage is done. “
