Oked like doomsday’
gathered up a few family treasures. Once told to evacuate, she went to Dunning to wait out the time until she could go back and see what she had to return to. Loading the horses close to 6 p.m., she left the yard around 10 p.m., then finally returned after two in the morning.
Drew went on to say he was thinking of Cristi and wondering what she was packing. “Everybody says you need a plan. You have to have a plan,” he said.
Drew and Cristi have ranched for the past 15 years and operate the Copsey-Gaffney Ranch. They are keeping the ranch life going, something both their parents started.
Of the 40,000 acres lost, the Gaffneys lost close to 7,200. “I feel fortunate we can still run our own cows on grass this summer,” Drew said. The Gaffneys say they are lucky their livestock was were at the farm in Anselmo where they calve out.
One of the biggest incomes for the Gaffney ranch is summer grazing for other ranchers. “It was one of the hardest calls I have ever had to make, calling the four ranchers that counted on me for summer grass,” Drew said. He went on to ask the question, “Where do they find grass this time of year?”
The Gaffneys expressed their sincere appreciation for the outreach they received from life-long friends, noting that a friend from Dawson County brought two crews to make a stand in their yard. “If it were not for the area farmers and ranchers who brought their own equipment, we would have lost the whole yard,” Drew said.
As the Gaffneys were fighting to save their land, so were the folks at the neighboring ranch Rifle Creek. There Riley Seda immediately stepped into fighting the fire when he saw the flames billowing towards the ranch. Stephanie, who was in Lincoln at the time, found out about the fire from the school bus driver with Riley out fighting the fire, she couldn’t drop off the children.
“I was in Lincoln because my mom had a massive stroke the week before,”