A dairy farm in Dimmitt, Texas, experienced an explosion and fire that affected one employee and thousands of cattle, reports The New York Times. The worker was rushed to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas.
In the event, roughly 18,000 cattle died. Sid Miller, the Texas agricultural commissioner shared in a statement, “This was the deadliest barn fire for cattle in Texas history…The investigation and cleanup may take some time.”
This is the largest mass death of cattle in a single fire across the U.S. in the past 20 years, according to the report. This tragedy has incited calls to instate barn fire codes across the country. According to Independent, there are no federal regulations protecting animals from fires; only a few states, not including Texas, have adopted fire codes for barns.
“This [explosion] would be the most deadly fire involving cattle in the past decade, since we started tracking that in 2013,” said spokesperson Marjorie Fishman with the Animal Welfare Institute, an animal protection nonprofit. It is one of the groups calling for fire codes.
Castro County, where the fire took place, produces nearly five percent of the state’s milk, according to The Texas Association of Dairymen, a dairy farmer advocacy group. Full Story (Subscription Required)
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