Where the buffalo roam

1971 quick attack squad.

As you drive up Highway 50 from El Dorado Hills, I'm sure you have all seen the herd of buffalo. I met their great grandfather some years ago. This is that story.

A number of years ago, around the mid 1970's a grass fire was fast approaching Bass Lake Road and Highway 50. It started around White Rock road. Everyone was scrambling to keep the fire away from homes as it approached our area. I had jumped into one of our quick attack squads and headed from Cameron Park Station to Bass Lake Road. The fire was just crossing the pasture on the south side of the highway where a couple of buffalo were kept. These were the years before wild land fire gear was worn by everyone, so I was in a blue duty shirt and black pants.

I pulled in the driveway of the home at the top of Bass Lake road, pulled a two hundred foot, one -inch reel line and was stopping the fire from running through the pasture. I wasn't going to stop the fire, but I could save the pasture and direct the fire around the home and out buildings. As I was running the fire line, I felt, more than saw ,the huge head of a bull buffalo that came up behind me. His breath was sort of steamy and he seemed more than a little upset about either me being in his pasture, or the fact that a fire was running through the stubble of his pasture.

When I looked around behind me and saw this huge head, and it was really a major huge head, I took my nozzle and gave him a quick spritz with the hose stream. He looked at me just a little startled. He looked at me for a few moments, like what did you just do? Did you just spritz me with you nozzle? I don't think anyone had given him a spritz before. He turned and trotted a few feet away near a small oak tree that was about six or eight inches in diameter. He looked back at me, then at the tree. With one quick twist of his head he uprooted the tree, then looked back at me. That was my clue to finish putting this fire out from the other side of the fence.

I pulled my line back to the squad, relocated and finished what I had started from the safety of being outside of his pasture.

Did I mention how big his head was? It must seem bigger when you can feel the steam from them breathing.