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Aftermath of Ray-Tioga wildfire

Nichole Koch and William Allen look over her grandfather Holte’s farmstead midway between Tioga and Ray. The remains in the foreground were his new modular home and an older remodeled house stood where the smokestack near the pine tree is on the right side of the photo. Other outbuildings were lost, along with a well-maintained old red barn and some equipment. Her grandfather had lived on this homestead all his life until Saturday, Oct. 5., when fires razed the area.
Nicole Koch compares her grandfather’s barn remains with a photo she has on her phone. The Holte farmstead, between Tioga and Ray, was a nearly complete loss. The rubble shown behind her phone was the barn earlier Saturday, Oct. 5, before wildfires claimed it.
Shown are the remains of one of the many Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative electric poles that partially burned and left the top fixtures hanging in the air by the powerlines, near an oil site 7 miles east of Ray. There were many such ghost poles all over the area waiting for replacement.
Numerous pole crews were out in force Monday working to replace the Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative poles that burned in the wildfires Saturday. Hundreds of poles were in need of replacement. This crew was working three miles west of Ray on U.S. Highway 2.
The Tioga Rural Fire Department mops up a flareup along U.S. Highway 2 Monday evening three miles west of the Tioga turnoff.
Wildlife paid a heavy toll during the wildfire Saturday, but as the presence of these three rooster pheasants attest, some of them made it through. They were feeding in the ashes of what used to be a shrub patch.

Photos by Roger Riveland

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