State officials have declared there was no foul play behind last week’s devastating dairy barn fire that left one farm worker severely injured and 18,000 dairy cows dead in Dimmitt, Texas.
Lead Castro County official Judge Mandy Gfeller elaborated on the findings, stating that investigators believe a piece of malfunctioning farm equipment caused the initial explosion. She says the exact cause is still under investigation. The fire started elsewhere on the farm before spreading to the dairy barn where most of the cows were waiting in holding pens to be milked, according to CBS affiliate KFDA in Amarillo.
The injured dairy worker, whose name has not been released, is in critical but stable condition. He was airlifted to UMC Hospital in Lubbock after fire crews rescued him from inside the barn during the fire.
Officials are calling this the deadliest cattle barn fire ever recorded, far eclipsing 2020 fire in upstate New York that killed 400 dairy cows.
The April 10 explosion rocked the small agricultural community some 50 miles from Amarillo in the prairie of the Texas Panhandle. Castro County is the second highest-producing dairy county in the state. South Fork Dairy was ten times larger than the average Texas dairy operation; it opened just three years ago and employs some 50-60 workers. There had been a reported 19,000 Holstein and Jersey cows at the dairy before the fire.
Judge Gfeller estimated the financial loss in the “tens of millions of dollars,” USA Today reports.
The tragedy fueled conspiracy rumors on social media. A slew of catastrophes at food processing plants and farms across the United States have made headlines the last few years, including farmland flooding in California’s Central Valley, two airplane crashes at food production facilities, and fires at multiple meatpacking plants. Blogger Gateway Pundit compiled a list of nearly 100 such events in 2022. That same year, Tucker Carlson Tonight hosted a segment on the topic, with guest Jason Rantz claiming, “You’ve got some people speculating that this might be an intentional way to disrupt the food supply.” After the show aired, a reporter from the network clarified that “we have found no evidence that these incidents are either intentional or connected.” Multiple news sources such as the Associated Press and Reuters conducted their own investigations and came to the same conclusion.
This has not stopped online speculation about intentional sabotage designed to cause food shortages.
Texas produces over 7 million gallons of milk annually, making it the fourth-largest dairy producer in the nation behind Idaho, Wisconsin, and California. There are approximately 625,000 dairy cows and 319 Grade A dairies across Texas, in stats provided by the tradegroup Texas Association of Dairymen.
