18,000 cattle killed: Fire at Texas dairy farm may be largest cattle killing ever

A startling 18,000 cows were killed in a dairy farm explosion and subsequent fire on Monday in Texas.

According to a report by USA Today, that figure is over three times the amount of cattle that are led to slaughter every day around the country.

As of Tuesday, the dairy farm employee who was extricated from the building and transferred to a local hospital remained in a critical but stable condition. There were no more fatalities among people. “It’s mind-boggling,” Dimmitt Mayor Roger Malone said of the number of bovine deaths. “I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy.”

Texas fire officials are currently looking into the precise cause

Since tracking barn and farm fires began in 2013 by the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute, it was the largest single-incident death of cattle in the nation. According to Allie Granger, a policy associate at the organization, that easily beat the previous high, a 2020 fire at an upstate New York dairy farm that killed about 400 cows. “This is the deadliest fire involving cattle we know of,” she said of the Texas incident. “In the past, we have seen fires involving several hundred cows at a time, but nothing anything near this level of mortality.”

About 70 miles southwest of Amarillo in Castro County, where the fire broke out, is a vast prairie country dotted with dairy farms and cattle ranches. Bystander photos shared on social media showed the burnt cows that were rescued from the structure as well as the massive plume of black smoke rising from the farm fire. According to County Judge Mandy Gfeller, the chief executive of the county, a malfunction in a piece of equipment at the South Fork Dairy farm may have resulted in the explosion and subsequent fire. According to her, Texas fire officials are currently looking into the precise cause.

She claimed that before being milked, the majority of the dead cows—a mix of Holstein and Jersey cows—were kept in a sizable holding area. A little more than 90% of the farm’s overall herd was 18,000 cows. Given that a cow is generally worth around $2,000, the company’s livestock losses could total in the tens of millions of dollars, according to Gfeller. Losses to structures and equipment are not included in that. “You’re looking at a devastating loss,” she said. “My heart goes out to each person involved in that operation.”

According to a trade organisation called the Texas Association of Dairymen, Texas is home to 319 Grade A dairies with an estimated 625,000 cows that produce close to 16.5 billion pounds of milk annually, placing the state fourth in the nation for milk production. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Castro County produces 148,000 pounds of milk each month from 15 dairies, making it the second-highest producing county in Texas.

South Fork Dairy was enormous even by Texas standards. Its 18,000 cattle made it almost ten times bigger than the typical Texas dairy herd. Texas cattle have lost a lot of lives before, but rarely do so many perish in a single fire. According to the Texas Association of Dairymen, a blizzard in December 2015 killed off almost 20,000 cattle in the Texas Panhandle. According to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Hurricane Harvey in 2017 caused $93 million in livestock losses around the state and resulted in the drowning of thousands of people in Southeast Texas.

Officials from the state and the dairy industry are now tackling the enormous and filthy chore of clearing up 18,000 burned cow carcasses. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality provides a number of requirements for the onsite burial of carcasses on its website. These requirements include burying the animal at least 50 feet away from the closest well and noting the GPS coordinates of the location. However, mass burials are not mentioned anywhere. According to officials, TCEQ and the AgriLife Extension Service are working together to help with the cleanup.

The mayor of Dimmitt, Malone, claimed to have completed emergency management classes where he learned how to get rid of animal remains after a catastrophe, but not on this site. “How do you dispose of 18,000 carcasses?” he said. “That’s something you just don’t run into very much.”