GRAND COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — Little did Ami Cullen know, when she visited a guest ranch in Granby over the summer 20 years ago how much it would impact her life.
Cullen had grown up on the east coast of Philadelphia, riding and showing horses for as long as she could remember. She recalled one summer she and her best friend came out to Colorado to ride horses at the C Lazy U Ranch, and then it became a tradition well into adulthood.
“It kind of became an ongoing joke that I was going to quit my job as an attorney to come be a wrangler for six months,” Cullen said.
Well, she didn’t quit her job to become a wrangler for six months. She quit and became a wrangler for more than 20 years.
“Kind of bounced around a little bit but ultimately kind of kept coming back here and I have pretty much been here since,” Cullen said.
She became the director of equine operations at the C Lazy U, and head wrangler, which meant she was mostly responsible for the 200 horses at the ranch. Then, came the fall of 2020. Coloradans will remember the sky was filled with smoke almost every day no matter where you were in the state.
“That summer, there were so many other Colorado fires burning that it was just like, ‘Oh, there’s smoke in the air,’ initially,” Cullen said.
The smoke then appeared to be getting closer, and then they received their first pre-evacuation notice. It was the start of the East Troublesome Fire on Oct. 14, 2020, which sparked northeast of Kremmling in Grand County. The fire became Colorado’s second-largest wildfire in history and wasn’t contained until Nov. 30, 2020.
Wildfire threatened historic structures on dude ranch
“I was terrified. I’m not even going to pretend I wasn’t,” Cullen said. “I had no idea what to do.”
An old barn on the property had some instructions on what to do if a fire were to threaten the ranch, so she and her team started by flooding the fields and the meadows and opening the irrigation ditches.
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The Grand County community and horse people across Colorado came together to help evacuate the 200 horses at the ranch (KDVR). -
Cullen has worked as Equestrian Director at C Lazy U for more than 10 years (KDVR). -
The ranch lost a few buildings including its historic barn, but Cullen says she is thankful it was not worse (KDVR).
Some of the younger girls working for her sent out a call for help on social media.
“That was one of the most amazing things I would say is the amount of horse people from Colorado that drove three or four hours to come help us and help move horses,” Cullen said. “That is to this day, one of the most special moments about the fire.”
She said trailers kept coming and loading horses out until they were at the point where they were turning trailers away because there were no more horses left to load. The horses were taken to a pasture off Cottonwood Pass, then transported to Evergreen when the fire became worse.
Cullen said she spent two weeks with the horses before returning after a blanket of snow had fallen on the ranch, but it was still a shock to see what had burned.
Rebuilding, signs of hope spur fictional retelling
“We lost our barn. There’s construction … for a guest cabin that’s being rebuilt. We lost staff houses … that were kind of on the back side of this pasture,” Cullen said.
However, she added it was encouraging to see what the fire hadn’t touched.
“Our lodge, which, that’s another historic building, that fire came right next to it but didn’t burn it,” Cullen said. “When you look back on it, there’s plenty still standing that has so much history that it could’ve been way worse.”
Once things settled down and the routine of ranch life started back up, Cullen began writing down everything that had happened.
“I didn’t really want to write a memoir, I wasn’t really, you know, it was a little too personal so then I began, like, fictionalizing.”
She wrote about her journey from legal practice to ranch life, from when the fire started to community response. Eventually, it came together in a fiction book called “Running Free.”
“It does cover that hunter-jumper world, East Coast attorney world to living out west and being out here. Which I just thought, honestly was just a fun story for people that might not know about it or are kind of stuck in their bubble of, ‘I must do this, I must be this,’” Cullen said.
In it, she said she hopes to inspire young women and young girls to pursue their passion, even if it comes with challenges.
“I think just kind of walking away from what you know and even if it’s for a week and coming out here just to experience it, you see that it does change people,” Cullen said. “I think you kind of have to just be willing to sacrifice and take chances.”
