CAMBRIDGE, Idaho — The Woodhead Fire has burned through 27,000 acres of Adams and Washington counties since Monday.
Evacuation orders are in effect while schools in Cambridge will be canceled for the second day in a row. Evacuations are at Level Two, which means people should be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice.
While some are preparing to leave the area and others are making arrangements for their children to stay home from school, one Cambridge family is thankful after fire crews saved their ranch.
Monte Spiering runs his family ranch just west of Cambridge off Horse Flat Road. Without help from fire crews, his livelihood would have gone up in flames.
Everything appeared to be calm when the fire first started on Monday, according to Spiering. As things progressed, they started preparing for the worst.
"We could tell it was going to get pretty bad,” Spiering said.“Got all the gates open so cattle and wouldn’t get kegged up in corners and be able to come down and try to help them as much as we could."
The Spiering's have around 250 cows and several horses. On Tuesday, they could see the fire coming towards their ranch from the canyons to the west.
“Once the wind caught those fires coming out of those canyons, I don't know how to estimate the speed of fire, but it was really coming, walls of flames,” Spiering said.
The family did what they could to protect their ranch on their own.
“All day and the day before, my wife, every time she got a chance, she was soaking our house and our corrals,” Spiering said. “Everything we had we were soaking down with water.”
However, without fire crews, they say their ranch wouldn’t still be standing.
“If it wasn't for those guys, I'm positive none of this stuff would be standing today,” Spiering said. “Those guys did a fabulous job from top to bottom. They made sure that we were, that our livelihood was taken care of.”
Spiering has seen lightning-caused fires in the area of his ranch but nothing like this fire.
“The crews did all that without any air support whatsoever, the smoke was so thick it was like a fog,” he said. “I mean, we were half a mile away from our place watching and we could not see our yard lights or anything."
Now that the flames have been contained, the family plans to head back to their ranch and spend time with their animals. Spiering said one of his cows was badly burned, but is expected to live.
Watch more 'Local News'
See them all in our YouTube playlist: