An explosion at a dairy farm in the Texas Panhandle has killed an estimated 18,000 cows and injured one person in one of the deadliest barn fires recorded since the US Animal Welfare Institute first began tracking them.
Castro County Sheriff Salvador Rivera said the fire and explosion at Southfork Dairy Farm near Dimmitt was likely due to 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," Animal Welfare Institute spokesperson Marjorie Fishman said.
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 Ms 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 by the Associated Press was unanswered on Thursday.
A spokesperson for the state insurance department, which oversees the fire marshals' office, said only that the fire was under investigation and referred questions to Sheriff Rivera, who did not immediately return phone calls for comment.
Insurance department spokesperson Gardner Selby declined comment on the injured person's condition.
Dimmitt is about 80 kilometres south-west of Amarillo and about 547 kilometres north-west of Dalllas.
Story By: AP
Original Story Link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-14/explosion-at-us-diary-farm-kills-18000-cows/102221736
