1 person injured, 18,000 cattle killed in explosion at Texas farm
- The incident – the deadliest barn fire involving cows recorded in the US – is under investigation and was likely to have been caused by overheated equipment
- A 2013 blaze in Indiana in which 1 million chickens died holds the record for the largest number of livestock killed
An explosion at a dairy farm in the Texas Panhandle that critically injured one person and killed an estimated 18,000 head of cattle is the deadliest barn fire recorded since the Animal Welfare Institute began tracking the fires.
Castro County Sheriff Salvador Rivera has said the Monday fire and explosion at Southfork Dairy Farm near Dimmitt was likely to have been caused by overheated equipment and would be investigated by state fire marshals.
“This would be the most deadly fire involving cattle in the past decade, since we started tracking that in 2013,” institute spokeswoman Marjorie Fishman said on Thursday.
The institute also tracks barn fires that kill other livestock, including poultry, pigs, goats and sheep.
“The deadliest barn fire overall since we began tracking in 2013 … was a fire … at Hi-Grade Egg Producers North, Manchester, Indiana, which killed 1 million chickens,” according to Fishman.
A 2022 report by the institute noted “several instances in which 100,000 to 400,000 chickens were killed in a single fire”.
A phone call to South Fork Dairy rang unanswered on Thursday.