Texas’ wildfires have devastated the state’s cattle industry — and the effects will be far reaching
CNNHemphill County, Texas CNN — When Shane Pennington, a 56-year-old cattle farmer near Canadian, Texas, first saw flames from an enormous wildfire approaching the ranch he manages, his first concern wasn’t his home. “It’s just hard to see them burn up.” Pennington is one of many cattle farmers whose livelihoods have been devastated by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest wildfire in Texas history, which has burned more than a million acres of land across the panhandle. “Farmers and ranchers are losing everything.” Brandon Meier, a local rancher, volunteer fire chief, and agricultural science teacher at a high school in the panhandle town of Canadian, described the raging inferno as a “monster.” Seeing the way the flames transformed the landscape was “surreal,” he told CNN. “I’ve seen this country, how it is with grass and sagebrush and cattle roaming out there, and the next day we come down here; it’s a barren desert,” he said.
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Texas Panhandle ranchers face losses and grim task of removing dead cattle killed by wildfires
The IndependentTexas Panhandle ranchers face losses and grim task of removing dead cattle killed by wildfires
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