Wyoming producers lend hand in Texas fire

TORRINGTON — The Smokehouse Creek fire ripped through the northeastern panhandle of Texas and western Oklahoma torching an unimaginable 1,058,482 acres.

The fire started on February 26 and affected numerous communities in Hemphill and Roberts counties. On March 16, it had officially been contained; however, due to the massive destruction, the Smokehouse Creek fire will officially go on Texas record as the largest wildfire in Texas history.

In Wyoming, a Hawk Springs resident decided to help livestock producers who were damaged by the blaze.

The fire began at approximately 2:20 p.m. CST on February 26, one mile north of Stinnett, Texas. When it spread east, it crossed and engulfed northern portions of Smokehouse Creek, becoming the namesake for an inferno that would destroy at least 30 houses in Canadian, Texas and more than 100 houses in Hutchinson County Texas.

According to news outlets, at least 11,000 people were left without power following the destruction of the power supply.

Two fatalities were also reported because of the devastating fire.

According to inciweb.nwcg.gov, powerlines were the cause of the reported-breaking blaze.

Dottie Packard, of Hawk Springs, explained to her husband she just had to help after viewing photo after photo of devastation as a result of the Texas wildfire.

“The Texas wildfire stuff started popping up on my Facebook,” Packard explained. “There’s a couple guys, they’re down there organizing things, and they made some videos (of the damage done by the fire).”

Packard and her husband own and operate a trucking company.

She said she was driving when the idea to help out the livestock producers in Texas came to her mind.

“I don’t know where I was that day, but I was driving,” Packard said. “When I got home, all the way home, I’d been thinking about it and I’m like, you know, I just feel like I should go down and help.”

Help is exactly what Packard and a group of Goshen County residents have done.

“There had been a lot of stories on the Facebook group called Texas wildfire updates, I think, anyway I got on that and watched it,” Packard explained. “There are all these people, they’re bringing in all kinds of supplies from all over. I saw a picture of a horse trailer, it was filled with pallets of bottled water, feed and all kinds of drinks piled on top of it. When you see this stuff, it just kind of shows you the volume of things that are brought in.”

Packard watched the Facebook group for updates and opportunities to help.

“One day, I was just like, I’ll go down there and even if they need help unloading cases of the water,” Packard said. “Which was strange because I don’t do stuff like this. I’m not really a joiner. I told my husband I wanted to go down there, and our business is kind of slow right now.”

Packard reached out to social media and posted her efforts, hoping to gain more donations for the 700-mile trip to fill out her trailer.

“I figured if I’m going, if somebody kind of has the same idea, I could take something down for them. At that point, I didn’t care if I took three sacks of feed in my pickup,” she said.

By evening, Packard had already been contacted by other residents in Goshen County who offered to help. That night, a man from the feedlot messaged her and said he’d donate half a load of hay.

“Then the next morning, I had a message from one of our customers (we also lease pasture from him) who said, ‘I’ll send some hay down.’ I told him I had half a load, and he said he would fill it out.”

Packard and her husband also donated hay to Texas fire relief, and shortly after she secured her first load to Texas, she was contacted by Scott Ross, of Hawk Springs, who offered to donate more hay.

Ross had a plan to provide more assistance to the livestock owners in the Texas panhandle.

“It all started with Dottie Packard out here in Hawk Springs,” Ross said.

“She drives truck as well. She got in contact with people down there (Texas panhandle) and she just started reaching out to other people up here. She got in contact with Rick Teeters. He’s kind of an emergency management specialist. He’s been the fire warden in the past years, and it’s just kind of what he does. He’s got a heart for that: serving his neighbors,” Ross continued.

He took two trucks of hay to the Texas panhandle which were loaded with donated hay, and the group is currently working on putting another convoy together.

“It’s going to be an ongoing deal. Some people lost a little bit and some people lost everything,” said Ross, adding that he contacted a local fifth generation rancher in the Texas panhandle who reported her ranch lost 20-25% of our feed. Her neighbors have lost 80, 90 and even 100%.

“I’m hoping to leave on Thursday with another load to get down there,” he said.

“They’re taking money(at the church) and they’re trying to help us with our fuel costs, but if they can, they can;  if they can’t, they can’t. It’s not going to stop me from going,” Ross explained. Ross estimated the distance from Goshen County to the town where supplies are being delivered (near Stinnett and Canadian, Texas) to be just shy of 700 miles.

Each semi load of hay being donated for delivery is worth about $3,500, with today’s market value, according to Ross.

“Freight right now, with freight rates, the freight that far is about $2,500 to get it down there, so it makes it pretty expensive,” he explained. “Truckers are donating $2,500 on their freight just to get it down there and just hoping to get some fuel money to get back and forth down the road.”

According to Ross, the Texas panhandle fire victims are in need of as much grass hay as they can find, and he worries about ranchers feeding cows too much alfalfa due to the feeding nature.

The devastation of the Smokehouse Creek fire is a sight unexplainable by words alone, according to Packard.

Because Texas cattle producers were in calving season when the fire erupted and many calves, cows and other livestock were killed, left maimed beyond repair and/ or orphaned, the types of supplies producers need vary.

“These cattle are in terrible shape,” Packard relayed. “There are so many dead cattle. Calves can’t suck because their mother’s utters are burnt.”

She said the deliveries being brought to Texas were being dropped off at different points in the area, but it wasn’t working for everyone, so another dispatch system was developed to ensure feed was delivered where it was needed most.

“We will start sending trucks directly to the ranches that need hay,” Packard said. “These guys don’t have time to come into town or send someone to town or whatever, so we are just going to take it straight to them.”

Packard delivered her first Texas relief load to Oklahoma.

“I get there and it’s like 8:30, it’s dark and I called the guy (I was delivering to). He said he didn’t have lights on the trailer, and he couldn’t unload me at night,” Packard said. “He asked me what I had on, and I told him alfalfa. He said, ‘I don’t need alfalfa, but I know a guy who does.’”

Packard was taken back by the kindness of everyone in the community and how they were willing to share what supplies they had with their neighbors.

“We remembered the Simmons fire north of Torrington and what that was like helping our neighbors to recover, and it completely devastated a bunch of people,” Rick Teeters of Veteran said. “I mean, our hearts just went out to them because we know what it was like to not have fence and have dead cattle. It’s still pretty fresh in everybody’s memory.”

Teeters quickly began networking after hearing about Packard’s efforts.

“I called several guys that I knew had trucks because I knew that the hay was going to be an issue, and then I immediately started trying to find ranchers and cowboy pastors and those kind of people on the ground in the panhandle down in Texas that I could talk to that could tell me exactly who needed what and when and where,” Teeters said. “When you do that, the people that need it, get it. So we just started the process of connecting with folks in Stinnett and Canadian, Texas where it started.”

Through his personal connections, Teeters was able to develop relationships with producers in the Texas panhandle.

“Initially Dottie took down a load of stuff there was a mixed load and then we sent six full semi loads of hay,” Teeters explained. “Then she came back and went back down yesterday (Monday) with a couple of guys with short loads, and I’ve got another six loads. We’ve got at least another six loads of hay that will be going out of here sometime between Friday and Sunday.”

Teeters said the loads of hay are about 125 tons per trip.

There have been other community members who have done the same, according to Teeters, and businesses in the community are reaching out a hand where they can too.

“It costs almost the same for the truck freight; if these drivers weren’t donating their truck and their time, you have as much freight in it as you do the hay,” he said. “It’s a big deal for everybody.”

Packard did “short runs” for the fire-stricken communities when she arrived in the Texas panhandle, according to Teeters.

The producers in the Texas panhandle need more than feed for their livestock; they’re also in need of fencing supplies to rebuild fences destroyed in the fire, Ross, Teeters and Packard said.

“Right now they are working on trying to build perimeter fences along highways and county roads to keep cattle off the roads. They’re not worried about line fences between neighbors. They’re worried about keeping cattle off the highways and byways,” Ross said. “They have a couple fencing crews that are trying to go as fast as they can to build fence to keep cattle off the highways. They are still finding cattle that are injured from the fire and having to euthanize them and stuff like that, so it’s an ongoing process.”

The feed donations have come from multiple producers and good doers. “It’s turned into something I didn’t expect,” Packard said.

“It’s just like Scott Ross told me, ‘These are our neighbors – they are just 700 miles away,’” Teeters said tearfully.

Anyone interested in donating to the Texas wildlife relief is encouraged to contact Rick Teeters at (307) 575-2314, Scott Ross (307) 575-1119 or Dottie Packard (307) 532-6312. Monetary donations can be given to North Hills Baptist Church in Lingle and earmarked “Texas fire.”

“If somebody has hay they are willing to donate, that would be super,” Ross said. “We will find ways to get it down there. If there’s truckers that want to jump in and haul hay, touch base with me, Rick Teeters or Dottie Packard, and we’ll find you something to haul down there.”