The grim task of assessing the carnage is under way after the largest wildfire in Texas history turned the Panhandle’s picturesque hillsides into a hellscape of ash and ember. The sparsely populated ranges have long been cattle country, and thousands of burnt carcasses were left strewn across the landscape.
Now ranchers are collecting their prized cattle with forklifts and making heartbreaking decisions about which of the injured must be euthanized. Local officials estimate there may be more than 10,000 livestock deaths linked to this disaster. Recovery will take years.
“The vast horizons of charred land mean a ranch has lost all their grass and all their grazing ability,” said Gary Joiner, the spokesperson for the Texas Farm Bureau. “These are family farms and ranches – many of them multi-generational – and this fire is unprecedented in terms of the scale and scope.”
In an age-old profession that’s inextricably linked to the land, ranchers are accustomed to navigating nature’s fury. But as extreme weather events intensify across the country, American cowboys are facing steeper challenges and greater losses. Herds have been thinned by deep freezes and deadly heat, severe storms and extended droughts, and the sharp swings between these extremes are only expected to worsen.
This reality has raised tough questions for ranchers across the US, many of whom are feeling the worst effects of the climate crisis, even as they face up to, and take steps to lessen, their industry’s role in global heating. But steeper challenges are also spurring more conversations about adaptation and conservation. In a line of work closely tied to identity and tradition, these conversations are being driven as much by the threat of extreme weather as by the desire to preserve landscapes so future generations can carry the mantle.
As long as demand for beef remains high, the men and women who run these ranches are determined to keep providing it, even when disaster strikes.
“You learn from the past and make sure you have a plan,” says Philip Weltmer, a third-generation cattle rancher in Kansas who has struggled with the impact of drought, extreme cold and fires on his animals. He’s quick to highlight that his grandparents navigated steeper hardships, but acknowledged that the threats are top of mind.
“We have been able to manage it better as we have learned,” he said. “But the hardest thing as a producer is watching something you work so hard for be burnt to the ground.”
‘I want it to be here for my kids’
High winds have always wailed through the dry grasses across the Texas Panhandle, but never in modern times have conditions aligned so perfectly to fuel infernos as fast and wide as the ones that ignited this year. The Smokehouse fire, which spread across more than 1m acres, grew to become the largest fire ever recorded in Texas.
The region has seen severe swings between wet and dry in recent seasons; last year delivered both torrential rains and was the state’s hottest on record. The cycles primed the landscape to burn by creating an abundance of vegetation that grew parched when temperatures spiked. Strong wind and low humidity completed the recipe that turned a spark into a huge conflagration.
Investigations into the cause of the fires are ongoing, but the power company Xcel Energy is already facing lawsuits over a fallen utility pole that may have ignited the biggest blaze. While the precise role of the climate crisis in exacerbating the fires will need further study, the disaster falls in line with patterns scientists warned would play out.
Melted street signs now line the roads in the rural towns that dot the sprawling rangelands, where hundreds of homes and businesses lie in ruin. Roughly 120 miles of power line that provide energy to pump wells have been destroyed, according to local officials, along with essential fencing and pastures that corral cattle.
For the cattlemen, though, it’s the livestock and the landscapes they are reared on that may prove the biggest loss. “We don’t have grass. We don’t have water,” Joiner said, listing the resources required to maintain the animals that are still alive. Many of them aren’t doing well, he added, detailing the respiratory issues caused by smoke inhalation, the severe injuries inflicted on hooves and udders, and the orphaned calves that will need to be bottle-fed to survive. “That’s where the heartbreak is – some are burned so bad they can’t be saved.”
The widespread footprint of the fire has left little to eat for the remaining herds, but hay contributions are coming from across the country. The ranching community that stretches far beyond state borders includes many who have experienced their own tragedies and are eager to lend a hand.
In Kansas, Weltmer has been watching the semis roll through his town laden with hay and signs that say they are heading to Texas, and he’s not surprised by the outpouring of support. He watched them roll into town in the other direction when a fire caught in Kansas and took some of his herds.
The state is the third largest cattle producer behind Texas and Nebraska and has seen its share of trying times in recent years. Weltmer, whose ranch hugs the pinpointed middle of the US, is only just starting to see his browned pastures begin to green after an extensive drought took a heavy toll. Last winter, Kansas grew so cold Weltmer said his propane tanks froze, while recent summers brought an onslaught of heat and humidity that killed cows by the thousands. Last year the state saw swings from sweltering 115F at the highest to -11F at the lowest. These dramatic shifts stress the cattle and thin their food sources, making them less resilient when the weather worsens.
The troublesome trends have impacted other states too. Across the country, inventories for US beef cows are at the lowest they have been since 1951, according to a survey released by the USDA in January. Extremes have always been part of the job, but Weltmer doesn’t dismiss the challenges ahead. He’s determined to adapt. “I feel it is my responsibility to leave the ground better,” he said. “I want it to be here for my kids.”
Beyond that, it comes down to hope.
“You live by Mother Nature and you just hope that raincloud is going to come by,” Weltmer added. “God’s beauty will take care of us.”
‘There is no one solution for this’
But there are times when lands don’t bounce back. Across the country in California, fifth-generation cattleman Dr David Daley is still dealing with the brutal aftermath of the Bear fire four years after it was extinguished.
Part of a 2020 conflagration that became known as the North Complex fire, which killed 16 people and erupted during a historically brutal fire season, the catastrophic blaze consumed swaths of overgrown forests that slope into the Sierra Nevada mountains where Daley’s cattle once roamed.
“In some respects it is still very raw,” he said, recounting the horrifying memories of a desperate search for survivors of his herd. Only a quarter of his 400-head herd were found alive and many of them wouldn’t survive their injuries. Daley and his family found cattle with their legs burned off, or their eyes gone, the animals he cared for rendered unrecognizable and stiffened where they lay on the scorched earth. Dead calves were found alongside dead fawns, perhaps huddled together in their final moments before they were overtaken by the flames.
“It really makes your stomach turn, even four years later when you wake up with it,” he said. Charred trees still line the areas once lush with life. “It is just not about the cows – it is about the ecosystem,” he said. “It still hurts when I go up there and I don’t know if that will ever change.”
But what most consumes his thoughts is not the last disaster, but the next one. Drying branches and other blowdown litter the forest floor in areas that are again ripe to burn.
A professor emeritus of animal science at California State University, Chico, he comes equipped with a doctorate and generations worth of passed-down experience in these mountains. He believes not enough is being done to mitigate the disasters that have affected him and the lands he loves.
He’s shared his story and expertise with legislators, media and experts through the years, growing increasingly frustrated over the time that has been lost to partisan bickering and finger pointing between decision-makers on the left and right, who are all far away from the landscapes they govern. The fire conditions that decimated these forests were made worse by the climate crisis, but were also fueled by decades of bad land management decisions.
“We are so focused on how to put the blame on somebody or something and we don’t really think about solutions,” he said. What he hopes will come out of the tragedies is a commitment to doing things differently.
To navigate the challenges ahead, Daley has called for strong centrist voices that can lead local, landscape-specific mitigation, with less arguing and more action. In his area, that means adopting sustainable strategies that lessen climate impact, but also more forest treatments that reduce fuels, following the lead from Indigenous nations that stewarded the lands long before they became cities, states and cattle ranges, and bringing healthy fire back to the forest. To accomplish all of that, he said, people will need to come together.
“There is no one cause for this and no one solution,” he added. “We all need to help one another.”
