The Gardiners of Ashland KS have been a ranching family for generations. Ten days after the biggest fire in Kansas history, he was still burying cattle. "One by one, an orange loader scooped them off the bare sandy soil and trundled them to a pit being dug by a backhoe."
Insurance and government aid will help these ranchers, but there are caps on the amounts they can get, and of course it may not come as soon as they'd like. Prairie grass is what the cattle feed on, and cattle that survived still need to eat - but hundreds of thousands of acres are now charred.
So communities pitch in to help. "Thousands of donated hay bales . . have been rolling into town on the backs of tractor-trailers." Fencing has been donated. "Members of 4-H clubs and National FFA Organization chapters drove down to help with the cleanup, sleeping in guest bedrooms and on living-room floors around the towns of Ashland, Meade and Protection."
Neighbors understand the importance of the cattle herds to these ranchers. Three of the deaths in Texas during the fire were ranchers trying to get their cattle to safety.
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