Fire costs Ranch thousands

Black Butte Ranch management, guests and residents are counting their blessings. They didn't have to evacuate and the Ranch is safe.

Things could have been worse.

But the three days of threat from the Link Fire did have their cost.

Full accounting of the extra labor costs and lost revenues won't be complete until the end of the month, according to Ranch manager Loy Helmly.

However, estimates place the losses in revenue at about $45,000.

According to Helmly, $15,000 was lost to early check-outs.

"We didn't have any complete cancellations; we just had some people leave early last week when the smoke was the worst and the danger seemed to be the worst," Helmly said.

Those check-outs translated to an additional $30,000 or so in lost revenue for golf, food and beverage service and retail sales.

Helmly did not have an estimate for extra labor costs associated with the heightened alert for fire and police.

Still, the losses and headaches of the Link Fire were much less than they would have been if the emergency had forced an evacuation.

Last year's Cache Mountain Fire evacuation was estimated to have cost the Ranch up to $100,000 per day.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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