More than a million acres of land have been scorched by wildfires across Texas, causing many residents to lose their homes, crops, and thousands of livestock in the historic blaze.
There are currently five active wildfires in northern Texas, some of which have reached into southern Oklahoma. The ongoing Smokehouse Creek fire has been deemed the most damaging in state history. More than 3,600 cattle have been reported dead, though the number is expected to increase by double or more as more animals are found or euthanized due to serious injury from the flames, according to Sid Miller, a commissioner at the Texas Department of Agriculture.
Despite the devastating losses for ranchers in the Panhandle, some reports claim that the effects on beef prices for consumers nationally are likely to be minimal, as the U.S. continues to increase its beef imports from other nations annually. Cattle ranchers in the U.S. have already faced significant hurdles in competing with foreign beef and big meatpacking companies for American consumers, and the newest set of challenges brought on by extreme weather events such as this will only make their jobs more difficult. Ranchers in the Panhandle have lost thousands of livestock, feed, and fencing, all of which are at record-high prices thanks to economic inflation, which will make recovery from the fires increasingly arduous.
“It’s a ghastly sight,” Sid Miller told USA Today while he explained what it was like to walk through smoldering fields filled with dead livestock. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
The Smokehouse Creek fire, which began in Hutchinson County in the Texas Panhandle on February 26, has burned over 1.2 million acres and left two people dead. The Dallas Observer reported that the second largest fire, the Windy Deuce Fire in Moore County, has left more than 144,000 acres burned and has been declared 55% contained by authorities. Grape Vine Creek Fire in Gray County consumed over 34,000 acres and is 60% contained, and the smaller Roughneck Fire in Hutchinson County is now 50% contained, though it has burned approximately 300 acres. Firefighters have contained 85% of the Magenta Fire, which burned more than 3,000 acres in Oldham County.
“As Texas experiences the largest wildfire in the history of our state, we remain ready to deploy every available resource to ensure communities in the Panhandle have the help they need to stay safe and work their way towards recovery,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a press release issued by his office on Tuesday. “The wildfires are not over yet—and until they are—it is essential that Texans in at-risk areas remain weather aware to maintain the safety of themselves and their property.”
On Friday, the governor told reporters that many “people who have lost a home had no insurance,” as many of the most impacted areas from the wildfires have been primarily low-income, rural towns. “So there are a lot of people in great need right now,” the governor added. Governor Abbott reassured residents Monday, stating, “We will continue to work around-the-clock to ensure Texans who have lost everything have the support they need to rebuild and recover.”
Not unlike the Maui fires that left more than 2,000 acres of land scorched and just over 100 people dead, state authorities have not yet stated what caused the wildfires. However, one lawsuit filed by a homeowner in Stinnett, a small town where several buildings and homes have been destroyed, alleged that the blaze was caused by a downed Xcel Energy Services utility pole. Others have blamed strong winds of up to 70 miles an hour following warmer-than-average winter temperatures in the region, and many have invoked “climate change” when seeking out the cause of the fires.
Following Maui’s devastating wildfire, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was harshly condemned by the American public for only providing $700 payments to impacted residents and contrasted the emergency aid with the billions of dollars sent overseas to fund the war in Ukraine.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has not yet commented on the ongoing wildfires in Texas; however, Senator Ted Cruz was reported to have initiated conversations with the federal agency to determine a course of recovery action.
Reviewed and edited by Marisa Svetlik.
