Kelly Kenoyer
As evacuation orders started coming in fast throughout east Linn County Tuesday, Sept. 8, folks in local rural communities started wondering how on earth they would get all their livestock out safely.
That’s when local residents sprang into action and formed a “Cowboy Convoy” to help evacuate animals.
Dave Butler, a retired truck driver and volunteer firefighter in Lebanon, said he got started when he saw someone asking for help on Facebook.
“Someone needed help and asked me to meet them at the Holley Market.”
By the time he got there, that person had already gotten the help he needed. But more and more friends showed up, ready to help, and Butler started organizing.
“As a retired firefighter, everyone figured I knew the ins and outs of what’s going on,” he said. “I started putting my phone number out there and posting on Facebook.”
Butler said they’ve formed a Facebook group to organize volunteers called Linn County Neighbors Helping Neighbors. The group already has 400 members.
For most of last week one end of Sweet Home’s Thriftway parking lot was full of trucks and trailers, ready to head out and help at a moment’s notice.
On Friday, Sept. 11, at least a dozen people, with their trucks and trailers, were staged in the parking lot on Main Street.
Jordan Miller said he tried to go up to Oregon City to help, but he got turned around.
“I went to Scio and Stayton and helped a few more people.”
Miller has a two-horse trailer and has transported 28 animals himself.
“I have two horses at my place, and then we took 40 head of cattle to Shedd today. A dairy farm took in as many as they could, and they’re full now. They took in a couple hundred.”
Animals of all kinds are getting moved around the state by the Cowboy Convoy. Janell Howard said she moved six goats in her Toyota Scion. “I figured they’d fit if I put the seats down,” she said with a laugh.
With fires blanketing much of western Oregon, finding safe places to drop off animals sometimes proved to be a juggle.
“Get them 15 miles away and drop them off and we’ll pick them up again if we need to,” Miller said. “It’s what we’d want to do if our place is in danger.”
It wasn’t just locals in Linn County helping out. Another volunteer, Alexis Delair, said people have been donating trailers all the way from southern Oregon. There was even a volunteer at Thrifway on Friday from Springfield, Lehi Smithson. As a recent arrival from California, he said “I’m used to the fires; I just assume I brought them with me.”
He’s used to moving livestock from doing it during fire season down south, so he knew how to help once fires started here. “We’re all just trying to help out.”
Butler said the group has moved hundreds of animals since the fires started threatening Sweet Home.
“Friday we ended up moving 52 head of cattle and one bull, another 80 head of cattle, and 30 horses. We did all those simultaneously and had it all done within an hour and a half.”
Timber Unity also donated several semi-loads of feed. With the fires moving a lot less this week, things have calmed down, he said.
“We’re on standby right now, we haven’t moved a lot of animals in the past few days. We’ve been disbursing a lot of hay to different areas around the state.”
Butler is also trying to make sure no one using the Cowboy Convoy name goes into level 3 evacuation areas. “We don’t want people,” he said.
“One of our guys yesterday loaded up about 100 bales of hay and brought it out to Grants Pass, and somewhere in there he picked up 100 more bales and brought them somewhere this direction.”