The deadliest known cattle fatality occurrence in US history resulted from an explosion at a dairy farm in west Texas, which resulted in the deaths of 18,000 cows.
Tens of thousands of dairy cows were confined in holding cages at the South Fork Dairy farm outside Dimmitt, Texas, on Monday night when a fire broke out. Social media users posted pictures of a huge black plume of smoke and some burned cows that were salvaged.
What firefighters discovered once the fire was put out, according to Dimmitt Mayor Roger Malone, was “mind-boggling.”
‘I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here,’ Malone told USA Today. ‘It’s a real tragedy.’
A worker was rescued from inside the holding pen and transported to a hospital. As of Tuesday, the victim was in critical but stable condition. No one else was injured or killed.
More cattle died in the incident than any other since the Washington-based advocacy group Animal Welfare Institute started tracking farm and barn fires in 2013. The deadliest event up until then had been a 2020 blaze that killed about 400 cows in an upstate New York dairy farm, according to a policy associate at the institute, Allie Granger.
‘The deadliest fire involving cattle we know of,’ Granger told the newspaper. ‘In the past, we have seen fires involving several hundred cows at a time, but nothing anything near this level of mortality.’
A farm equipment malfunction may have caused the explosion that ignited the fire, according to Castro County Judge Mandy Gfeller.
The Holstein and Jersey cows that perished were about 90% of the herd on the farm and were worth about $2,000 each. That equates to tens of millions of dollars, not including building and equipment losses.
Malone said he has taken courses on disposing animal carcasses after a disaster, but is still trying to figure out what to do.
‘How do you dispose of 18,000 carcasses?’ he said. ‘That’s something you just don’t run into very much.’
Meanwhile, residents are concerned about the disaster possibly hurting the local economy.
‘That’s a lot of the money that we have and then a lot of milk also too,’ Dimmitt resident Alex Aguilar told KFDA. ‘So I think it’s really crazy that that happened.’