Faulty reasoning signals

• Confirmation Bias - 0%
• Anchoring Bias - 1.4% (11 hits)
• Availability Heuristic - 2.2% (17 hits)
• Representativeness Heuristic - 0%
• Hindsight Bias - 0%
• Overconfidence Bias - 0%
• Framing Effect - 1.6% (12 hits)
• Loss Aversion - 6.3% (48 hits)
• Status Quo Bias - 0%
• Sunk Cost Effect - 4.7% (36 hits)
• Optimism Bias - 1.4% (11 hits)
• Pessimism Bias - 0%

Article text

Utah’s Babylon Fire, now considered a megafire, threatens the historic Dugout Ranch

Heidi Redd has fought for over 50 years to save the historic Dugout Ranch in Utah’s San Juan County.

Now the Babylon Fire, which is uncontained at more than 100,000 acres, is bearing down on it.

The 84-year-old rancher still calls the property home.

“We have been evacuated from the ranch, so I am staying in a little cabin 15, 20 miles from the ranch itself,” Redd said.

“You know you’re leaving behind a world of treasures in your home, and you don’t know when you get back if they’ll be there.”

From where she is staying, she said she could see the fire on Shay Mountain ridge exploding with lightning Monday night.

The ranch sits north of the fire along Utah State Route 211, the scenic byway that leads to the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.

The surrounding area is under closure orders from the Bureau of Land Management.

Firefighters escorted Redd and her son Matt Redd inside the fire lines.

“Just driving up and through the fire, and while it's devastating, and seeing the trees naked and bare and black, there is some real beauty in the trees you see without their leaves, the actual formation of their limbs, and so there was some beauty,” she said.

“There is a lot of heartache too.”

It was especially heartbreaking when she laid eyes on the burnt historic cabin in Mormon Pasture that she had lived in for 60 years.

The pasture and their camp are deep inside the Babylon Fire’s perimeter, and the cabin is now lost, she said.

“There's a beautiful spring there, and it's a rough cabin.

It isn't fancy,” she said.

”We have a wood-burning stove and a spring that we bathe in and get our drinking water and everything.

Sometimes it's just the beauty of seeing the mountains, seeing the landscape, the horses, the elk bugling, the deer coming in, and so it's just an escape from the modern world.

No television, no phone, so you’re really in nature.”

As the fire crawls toward the ranch proper, Redd said other structures could be on the line too.

There are a couple of forest ranger stations on the mountain.

She also worries about the ranch’s barn, the science center and the other homes on the property.

“Most of all,” she said, “we have a tack shed that is over 100 years old where we keep all our saddles and our riding gear, and so that structure will be hard to see go.”

The Nature Conservancy purchased the 5,200-acre ranch in 1997 when the family business ran into tough times.

Part of their conservation work includes studying climate change and land management at the Nature Conservancy’s Canyonlands Research Center.

Her son leads the program, which Redd said is not only great for preservation but also for the wider benefit of ranchers.

“We share what we learn, and try different crops that take less water, and we're also doing that with cattle.

Matt has had a herd of Criollo cattle, which came over with Christopher Columbus.

They're lighter on the land, they take less water, they're really lean beef.”

There are probably 100 firefighters stationed at the ranch, she said.

They’re staging various water tanks and cutting shrubs and bushes that could feed the fire.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

If the fire comes down Indian Creek, it’s loaded with trees, and that will be a really hellacious fire, but they’re doing everything they can to mitigate and get ready for that if it does happen.”

Redd, who’s in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and wrote a book about conserving Dugout Ranch, has newfound respect for the grueling work firefighters are doing.

“I've always thought the cowboys were tough, and they are, but they don't compare to a firefighter,” she marveled.

“I have just been amazed at the stamina they have and the work they do in heavy fireproof clothing and heat.”

And Redd — who’s in her 80s — has known her share of tough times.

“I've had droughts.

I’ve had a lot of cattle in deep, deep snow, trying to save them, and in some ways it's similar.

But [with] a fire, I don't know every night or every morning where it is, where it's going, what the wind will decide to do, so I feel a little bit out of control.

I don't have the ability to control what happens.

I'm just hoping for the best.”

Disclosure: The Nature Conservancy is a financial sponsor of KUER