At least 18,000 cattle were killed Monday night when an explosion occurred at the Southfork Dairy Farm in Dimmitt, Texas. This is the deadliest barn fire involving cattle ever, according to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI).

By Kevin Downey Jr. 4:39 PM on April 13, 2023

The blast occurred in a holding area at the farm where the cows were being kept prior to milking. While some cows were able to escape the fire, many were injured and had to be put down. One employee was critically injured in the blast and is being treated at a nearby hospital.

Brutal Farm Fire Kills 18,000 Cows

The South Fork Dairy Farm — located near Dimmitt, Texas — lost 18,000 cows in what was determined by the Animal Welfare Institute to be the worst farm fire for cows since 2013, when authorities began tracking barn fires.

After a boiler explosion at Shearer’s Foods in Hermiston, Oregon in February, the company laid off its employees. In March, there was a large fire at the Penobscot McCrum potato processing plant in Maine. In April, a private plane crashed into Gem State Processing, a potato processing plant in Idaho. A week later, another private plane crashed into the General Mills plant in Covington, Georgia.

Meanwhile, an April fire at the port of Benicia, California hampered gasoline production. A natural gas pipeline exploded in Michigan in March.

That same month, there was a massive fire at the Taylor Farms food processing plant in Salinas, California. Also in April, the Dufur, Oregon headquarters of Azure Standard, a leading organic food distributor, was destroyed by fire, and another fire destroyed the East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire. Early in May, a chicken farm in Jones County, Mississippi was destroyed by fire. Saladino’s food processing plant in Fresno, California caught fire around the same time. A Walmart Fulfillment Center in Indiana caught fire in late May. Also in late May, a fire at Forsman Farms in Howard Lake, Minnesota killed tens of thousands of chickens. In mid-June, there was a huge fire at the Festive Foods pizza plant in Belmont, Wisconsin.

In Iowa in April, five million chickens were killed after discovery of a single case of avian flu. 22 million chickens have been killed nationwide in an attempt to contain the outbreak. Thousands of cattle died in Kansas in June; their deaths were blamed on the heat, but it was not an unusually hot month, and numerous people with farming experience were skeptical of the official explanation.

Meanwhile, on May 26, a coal train derailed near Gothenburg, Nebraska. On June 1, a train derailed near Lansing, Iowa, with ten coal cars leaving the tracks; the contents of one spilled into the Mississippi River. Another train derailed in Shiner, Texas on June 3, spilling coal in the center of the town. In British Columbia, yet another coal train derailed on June 18, spilling coal from fifteen rail cars. That same day, one more coal train derailed in Lawrence, Kansas, spilling a “large amount” of coal.

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