Wildfires in the West. Heavy rains in the Midwest. Flash floods in the Southwest. You've seen the destruction wildfires and torrential floods can wreak, even when quick response and rescue are at hand.
If you're horse camping, these extreme conditions can spell disaster, especially if you're in a remote area, where evacuation is difficult. And you need to keep your horse safe, as well as yourself, which add to the challenge of quick action in a pressure-packed emergency situation.
Here, we'll first explain how to avoid a fire or flood while horse camping, with smart planning. Then we'll give you lifesaving tips should a disaster occur despite your best-laid plans. We'll also tell you how to extinguish your own campfire, so you don't inadvertently start a devastating forest fire.
Smart Planning
The best way to prevent a horse-camping emergency is to stay out of harm's way altogether. A week before your camping trip, check the weather forecast for storms and/or high fire danger for your planned destination. Check the forecast every day until right before you leave on your trip. If there are danger signs, cancel your trip, or choose another destination.
A few weeks before your trip, maintain your rig, so it'll be dependable should you need to move out of the way quickly in an emergency. Also check the integrity of your tack and equipment to minimize the risk of a breakage in an emergency situation. Bring along one extra halter per horse, just in case.
Work with your horse so he'll trailer-load with ease. Make sure any horses sharing your trailer also load easily. Learn to hitch up your trailer quickly, day or night - in the dark, without a flashlight.
Flood-Safety Tips
To minimize flood risk in the event of a downpour, never camp in a location that has - or has ever had - water flowing through it. Even if a riverbed, streambed, wash, or arroyo is bone dry when you pull in, water will still collect in these low-lying runoff areas in a storm.
Even if there isn't a cloud in the sky, water can come unexpectedly from a storm in the mountains miles upstream, then collect in valley riverbeds. If the beds and channels are overwhelmed, the water will run outside the banks, flooding an entire low-lying region. This runoff can flood up to 30 or 40 miles before it dissipates and soaks into the riverbed as it flows along. And one thing it can wash away and destroy is your camp by the river!
Select a high campsite, out of water-flow areas. In a meadow, keep to the edges on the higher contours. Camp at least 150 feet from the edge of live (flowing or standing) water, and the same distance from the high-water mark of a dry riverbed or lakebed. Note that this distance also meets most agencies' environmental regulations for camping near water.
Then keep your eye on the sky. Watch for gray or black clouds in the distance that could bring a downpour. If you spot an impending storm, trailer or ride to higher ground, and wait it out.
