More than two dozen ranchers and farmers in the Pine Valley gave up irrigation water for part of last week to ensure firefighters had a supply near the leading edge of the Town Gulch Fire as it burned down the West Wall toward the valley.

Inga Thompson, president of the Posy Valley Irrigation Ditch Company, said water from Pine Creek that is allotted to 25 to 30 landowners who irrigate their pastures was temporarily diverted into the Posy Valley Ditch to aid firefighters.

The ditch runs for about 13 miles from near Carson, at the upper end of the Pine Valley, along the West Wall to Highway 86 southwest of Halfway.

“We have received multiple thanks from the fire crews who needed that water,” Thompson wrote on the Town Gulch Fire Information 2024 Facebook page on behalf of the ditch company’s board of directors — Paul O’Brien, Tony Chetwood, Tim Kriser and Kathryn Moore. “It was the right and honorable thing to do.”

In a phone interview Monday morning, Aug. 12, Thompson said that in addition to the landowners forgoing their water rights for 24 to 36 hours, the Pine Valley Ranch allowed helicopters to dip water from the Laird Reservoir south of Highway 86 along The Sag Road.

“The whole community came together to help fight this fire,” Thompson said.

But the diversion of water from Pine Creek was not universally praised.

Melody Huff, who works as a ditch walker for two other ditches that also get water from Pine Creek, Foothill and McMullen, said Thompson didn’t notify all the affected property owners. Huff said sections of Pine Creek dried up when water was diverted into the ditch, and that fish died as a result. Cattle were also left without stock water, Huff said.

Baker County Watermaster Marcy Osborn said early Monday afternoon that although use of water, including water allocated through water rights, for emergency firefighting is allowed without a permit, in this case “it was done incorrectly.” She said she was concerned not only about the process but also about the amount of water diverted from Pine Creek. The diversion was constant, she said, compared with, for instance, helicopters scooping water from a reservoir.

Osborn said she stopped the diversion on the afternoon of Aug. 9, and that Pine Creek is flowing again below the Posy Ditch diversion.

Osborn said no one notified her office of the proposed use before the water was diverted from Pine Creek, and that some of the landowners who were left without their allotment of water were not notified either.

“I understand it was in the heat of the moment, but it was not done properly,” Osborn said.

She said she was contacted about the diversion by some landowners who were “frustrated and angered.”

She said she is looking into the possibility of financial penalties for the unauthorized diversion.

In response to the complaints, Thompson said the diversion into the Posy Valley Ditch was an “urgent request on behalf of the firefighters.” She said she believes the circumstances were basically the same as when helicopters get water from a reservoir or firefighters install a pump in a stream, situations that meet the emergency use exemption.

Thompson said she believes that most of the affected landowners “were informed through word of mouth.”

“A few were not happy about losing irrigation water,” Thompson said.

She said she believes it was a “great coordinated effort by ranchers in the danger area.”

Jay Sly, who is the deputy water master in the Pine Valley area, had diverted some water from Pine Creek into the Posy Vally Ditch on Aug. 6 at the request of local firefighters. 

Osborn confirmed that firefighters had requested that water be diverted into that ditch.

Thompson said the amount of water diverted into the ditch wasn’t enough to bring water to parts of the ditch where firefighters needed it, so she increased the diversion.

The Posy Valley Ditch had been dry for the past few weeks, Thompson said.

That’s a typical situation for mid-summer, as the snowpack melts, leaving water stored in the Pine Lakes as the source of irrigation water for members of the company that maintain the reservoir.

Thompson said the rewatered ditch helped firefighters working to stop the fire from continuing east to the Pine Valley. Some areas in the upper end of the valley had been without irrigation water for a few weeks, Thompson said, and pastures that hadn’t been grazed much had tall, dry grass that would burn readily.