The biggest inferno in Texas history is being fueled by winds and high temperatures as it rages Sunday, threatening to incinerate more buildings, cattle and livelihoods across the Texas Panhandle while residents sift through ashes of what used to be homes.
Critical fire weather conditions were expected to continue Sunday in the area, with strengthening winds gusting to 50 mph and dry conditions combining to set the stage for rapid wildfire spread, the National Weather Service warned.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire has been burning for nearly a week and has torched more than 1 million acres in Texas alone, making it the largest fire on record in the state – and it is only 15% contained.
Nobody knows for sure how many have been killed so far.
Most news reports that I have seen say that it is “thousands”…
The largest wildfire in Texas history has devastated the state’s agriculture, blazing through more than 1 million acres of land in the Panhandle, killing thousands of livestock, destroying crops and gutting infrastructure.
The agriculture industry, a big driver of the state’s economy, was already facing pressures from prolonged and widespread drought that forced ranchers to manage smaller herds, contributing to a decrease in beef production nationally. The series of wildfires in the Panhandle this week is another blow as many ranchers tried to rebuild their herds and operations during the cooler months of the year.
State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told The New York Times that the Panhandle is home to roughly 85% of Texas’s cattle herds.
The region supports over 10 million head of livestock. Most of the cattle are kept in feedlots and dairy farms as farmers and ranchers attempt to shield their herds from the wildfires, Miller said.
“There are millions of cattle out there, with some towns comprising more cattle than people,” Miller told The Wall Street Journal.
Canada is the next nation to report a multi-decade low cattle herd.
At the beginning of the year, the USDA reported the lowest total U.S. head since 1951 at a little more than 87 million.
Now, Statistics Canada is reporting the Canadian cattle herd is at its lowest level in more than 30 years, totaling just 11 million cattle and calves on farms.
Of course it isn’t just beef that is going to become more expensive.
All over the western world, “green policies” are making things extremely challenging for farmers and ranchers.
Globalist “green” policies as well as inflation and rising costs have led to thinner herds, and in some instances, foreclosure or shuttering of farms altogether, bringing with them a potential domestic food crisis, they said.
“Farmers are going out of business every day,” said John Boyd Jr., founder of the Black Farmers of America.
Fear mongering?
ReplyDeleteMatthew 6:25-34
Because of this I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you should eat or what you should drink; nor your body, what you should put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow nor do they reap, nor do they gather into barns, and your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? And who of you by worrying is able to add one cubit to his stature?
And why do you worry about clothing? Consider carefully how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. But if God thus clothes the grass of the field, existing today and tomorrow being thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ Or ‘What shall we drink?’ Or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things. For your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Sufficient to the day is its own trouble.
Great Comment!
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