Communication seen as vital for Ag Pass programs

By Kevin Hecteman

Kelly Williams was in Merced one July day when he got news ranchers never want to hear: A wildfire had ignited near where some of his cattle were grazing, and the nearby town was being evacuated.

He hustled back to Mariposa County, where he runs cattle and serves as president of the Mariposa County Farm Bureau, and headed for Jerseydale, which his wife had told him was being evacuated.

Williams hit a roadblock on the way up. The people staffing it evidently had not gotten the word about the county’s new Ag Pass program, intended to allow ranchers such as Williams to get behind the perimeter to look after or evacuate livestock. At first, they would not let him through.

“It’s a new program that never had any time to get tested, except in a big circumstance,” Williams said of the Ag Pass. He cited a “lack of communication” among different agencies staffing roadblocks.

“You start taking 20 minutes, 30 minutes—that’s a lot of time if we’re trying to get something out,” Williams said.

Years of devastating wildfires led to farmers, ranchers, agricultural commissioners and emergency personnel to figure out safe ways to let ranchers look after or evacuate livestock from behind fire lines.

In 2021, Assembly Bill 1103 authorized county agricultural commissioners to create Ag Pass programs for livestock producers; some counties allow farmers to use the pass to turn on irrigation or water systems. But awareness of the program is lacking.

In the end, all was well for Williams: A Cal Fire official called to allow ranchers through to move herds to safety. “He knew that we had cows in the area, so that’s actually how we went through,” Williams said.

“I give the ag office credit,” he added. “They were right there—they kept in touch with us the whole time, wanting to know we’d gotten out. I’d had all my cows out of there by 8:30 that night.”

Williams does not seek to throw anyone under the bus, only to get everyone on the same page—and get word out on Ag Pass. “I’m not going to condemn anybody,” he said. “I think the biggest thing was just communication.”

Mariposa County put its program together this year, holding training sessions in early July and issuing some passes the next week. The July 22 ignition of the Oak Fire meant the county didn’t have time to inform everyone, said Monica Nielsen, Mariposa County’s agricultural commissioner. In the fire’s early hours, she said, she got a message from a colleague about ranchers being hung up at a roadblock for 30 minutes.

“It actually happened that a Cal Fire person who was also a producer up there was able to get them through that roadblock,” Nielsen said. “That is where it really hit home that we didn’t get everybody that we needed to notify quick enough.”

In the wake of that experience, Nielsen said she will meet with various county departments to ensure they know what the pass is, what it looks like and what it means.

“If somebody (with an Ag Pass) comes up to you during an evacuation, they need to be let through,” Nielsen said.

Any program such as this involves a learning curve, said Tracy Schohr, a University of California Cooperative Extension cattle advisor in Butte, Plumas and Sierra counties.

“With any new program,” she said, “there is a lot of people that get called in when there’s an emergency that aren’t always local, or different levels within some of those local emergency services,” who may be unfamiliar with Ag Pass.

“There has been a lot of outreach statewide and within incident management services and office of emergency management to try to explain to more people what the program is and how it works.”

Schohr said from her experience in the North State, there’s always room for improvement.

“But it’s 100% better than what we had during the Camp Fire (in 2018), which was nothing, or during the North Complex (in 2020), when there was a lot of confusion and distrust, and unawareness of how for ranchers to even access being able to get their cattle during a fire,” she said.

Schohr emphasized that having the pass is not always a guarantee of entrance, as fire conditions can render an area impassable.

“It’s kind of like TSA Pre-Check,” Schohr said. “You have the pass. We know you’re a legitimate rancher. We know you should be behind lines, but it’s still at the discretion of emergency personnel to let you in.”

Butte County’s Ag Pass program was put together in early 2021, and conversations began early, Schohr said.

“We actually had a tabletop exercise where ranchers, our ag commissioner, Cal Fire and the Sheriff’s Department all sat down, and we went through a number of scenarios,” Schohr said. “When the Dixie Fire came upon us (in summer 2021), we had had a little bit more time to go through these exercises.”

Continuing communication is key, Schohr said.

“The emergency services really want to help ranchers and agriculture,” Schohr said. “I think this just gives them a good pathway to do it.”

In Mariposa County, farmers and ranchers seeking an Ag Pass apply in person; Nielsen said applicants will watch the training video while staff vets the application. Nielsen said he video covers three areas: what the pass is; the role of the county Office of Emergency Services; and fire safety.

“Then they’re actually here in our office, so we’re able to answer any questions that might not have been answered during the recording,” Nielsen said.

The Mariposa County Ag Pass has two elements: a hanger for the rearview mirror, and a card with the rancher’s photo and information. Nielsen encouraged county farmers and ranchers to apply.

“If you’re a producer, get your pass,” Nielsen said. “We are able to assist those what we know have the pass. If we don’t know they’re in an area, we’re not going to be able to assist them.”

Williams’ cattle, long since moved to safe ground, won’t be heading back up the hill this year—all the food they would have grazed on is gone. Usually, he doesn’t move the herd until October.

“I just moved into some ground that I usually take cows in a little later,” he said.

Williams said he’d been to the training only a couple of weeks before the Oak Fire broke out in the Sierra National Forest.

“Like anything new,” he said, “there’s going to be good and bad, and it’s going to take time to get it orchestrated.”

(Kevin Hecteman is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)