When the Elk Fire was bearing down on all three sides of the Horseshoe subdivision west of Dayton, evacuating the area was the last thing on resident Warren Tritschler’s mind.
He wasn’t going to leave the home he and his wife spent 30 years of their lives building. He was going to do everything he could to save it.
So, when fire roared down the hill, an 8- to 10-foot-tall inferno headed for his home overnight Friday into early Saturday morning, Tritschler was there with a garden hose in hand.
He used the hose to put out a burning tree that was too close for comfort. He doused softball-sized embers that blew in, threatening to set his home on fire. And he wetted down a neighbor’s well, trying to prevent its destruction.
Tritschler kept spraying with his garden hose until a transformer blew and the power went out, cutting off his water supply.
But he wasn’t done in. He hopped into a buggy outfitted with a weed sprayer, using that to keep things wet all around his home.
“I put out a lot of fire with that weed sprayer,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “I can’t imagine what I could have done with an actual fire truck.”
Who Are The Hillbilly Hotshots
Tritschler is one of the many self-described “guys in blue jeans” — or as others have called them, Hillbilly Hotshots — who have outfitted their own trucks with water tanks.
They are self-appointed protectors, patrolling their own ranches and neighbors’ homes, alert for embers carried far from the Elk Fire’s frontlines, doing what they can to protect their land and their homes.
While some firefighters have discouraged such practices saying it can divert fire resources when someone untrained is in an evacuation area, Tritschler believes that the guys in plain blue jeans are making a difference. Residents of the Double Rafter Ranch also recently credited them with helping to save their historic ranch.
Tritschler has started a fuel fund at his Buckhorn Travel Plaza in Ranchester to help these "guys in bluejeans” keep their trucks and their water tank pumps fueled up.
“I think there’s a misconception here, too, because the volunteer firefighters and these guys in blue jeans are the ones who are actually working together,” he said. “Going against the grain of the feds. The feds are the ones who called all of the firefighters off of (Horseshoe subdivision). They were trying to get us to fall back to the IXO (Ranch). And there’s a bunch of those guys who said no, and just stayed.”
Cowboy State Daily has asked the Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team about the events of Friday night into Saturday morning, but the team has not responded.
Sheridan County Sheriff’s Office reported on Facebook that a passing cold front had caused the fire to behave erratically, forcing a temporary evacuation around 1:30 a.m.
“While we regret the loss of property, the No. 1 goal is always the safety of the public and the firefighters,” the post said.
The Elk Fire rages around Warren Titschler's home near Dayton, Wyoming. With a hose and a water tank, he protected it through a frightening night of out-of-control wildfire activity. (Courtesy Warren Titschler) 
The Elk Fire rages around Warren Titschler's home near Dayton, Wyoming. With a hose and a water tank, he protected it through a frightening night of out-of-control wildfire activity. (Courtesy Warren Titschler) 
The Elk Fire rages around Warren Titschler's home near Dayton, Wyoming. With a hose and a water tank, he protected it through a frightening night of out-of-control wildfire activity. (Courtesy Warren Titschler) 
The Elk Fire rages around Warren Titschler's home near Dayton, Wyoming. With a hose and a water tank, he protected it through a frightening night of out-of-control wildfire activity. (Courtesy Warren Titschler) 
The Elk Fire rages around Warren Titschler's home near Dayton, Wyoming. With a hose and a water tank, he protected it through a frightening night of out-of-control wildfire activity. (Courtesy Warren Titschler) 
The Elk Fire rages around Warren Titschler's home near Dayton, Wyoming. With a hose and a water tank, he protected it through a frightening night of out-of-control wildfire activity. (Courtesy Warren Titschler)
Things Get Terrifying
Things started to get terrifying for the Horseshoe subdivision Sept. 30. That is when the first evacuation order was issued for homes there and for homes along Pass Creek Road near Parkman.
“We had it breach the canyon and come across to Hairpin Turn,” Tritschler said. “The fire breaks that they put in were great ideas. It looked like the fire was going to actually push back up into Steamboat and Turkey Creek, away from us.”
Tritschler said the neighborhood had celebrated multiple times, thinking the fire was finally done with them.
But it wasn’t.
Friday was a “weird day” for the fire, Tritschler said.
“They were telling us it was spotting in kind of the opposite direction of where the fire was,” he said. “And I knew once it had crossed that south side and it started coming down to the west side of the mountain, that we’d probably have fire that day.”
When the fire finally did come, just as Tritschler had feared, it behaved oddly.
“It would burn slow and then take off up the hill fast,” he said. “Then it would burn slow again and go up the hill fast again.”
As the wind picked up into the night, the fire looked like liquid lightning racing along the ground, consuming everything in its path.
“My wife was watching the whole thing from our house camera,” Tritschler said. “She told me to get out of there, too, but I had multiple fallback points, and I knew I was safe.”
Tritschler had placed stock tanks full of water on his property, mainly so he could replenish the water tank on his weed sprayer buggy, but also so that, if necessary, he could dive into one of the tanks, until the grass fire was past him.
“When it came across the grass toward our house, it looked like a wave,” he said. “It was burning, the back of it was 30 feet from the front, and it went as far as you could see, all the way up the hill.”
His biggest fear wasn’t really the grass fire itself. It was the embers hitting the side of his house or landing in the soffit area.
All The Elders Were There
Tritschler wasn’t the only one on the scene, standing ready to help, when the fire came for Horseshoe Subdivision.
“We’ve got a great neighborhood of people in that community,” he said. “Lots of veterans, lots of farmers who understand grass fires, that type of stuff. All the elders were out.”
When the fire came over the hill, Dayton and Ranchester fire department volunteer firefighters rushed to the house nearest the hill, Tritschler said, attacking a wall of what Tritschler described as pure flames.
“I can’t say enough about all the volunteers,” Tritschler said. “They rushed in and hit that — it was walls of flame. Walls of flame. I wouldn’t have probably gone up on that one, but they rushed in and hit it.”
Wind took off with the fire, pushing it up the hill, to his neighbor’s home, just above his own. He rushed into action himself with a garden hose, wetting things down, trying to make sure no embers could take hold on his property.
At one point, Tritschler saw a “guy in blue jeans” drive his truck right through the fire.
“The fire was going down into the bottom,” Tritschler said. “And this guy ran down. He knew if he could get where we had a fire break, if he could get around that and get the fire out, it wasn’t just going to save us, it was going to save Dayton, because that was where the fire was headed.”
That flame wall was around 10 feet high Tritschler said, and the man drove his pickup right through it. It was like seeing something in an action movie.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
