Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, April 14: Explosion and fire at the family-run dairy farm Southfork Dairy Farms on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of over 18,000 cows in Texas. According to a Reuters article, the tragedy represents the worst barn fire in US history. The family that owns the farm has not yet commented on the occurrence, and the origin of the fire is still a mystery.
The Castro County Sheriff’s Office released pictures of a structure with flames shooting through it and into holding kennels. Firefighters managed to free one trapped individual inside the blazing structure, according to the Sheriff’s office.
For the protection of the general populace, all access roads to the farm have been shut down.
One of the oldest animal protection organisations in the US, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), was motivated by the large fire to advocate for federal legislation to prevent barn fires, which claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of agricultural animals every year.
According to Reuters, citing AWI, just a few US states have established fire prevention guidelines for such structures, and there are no federal laws protecting animals from such fires.
Since the AWI started keeping track of such accidents in 2013, the fire at the Texas property was the most disastrous barn fire in the US involving cattle. Over 6.5 million agricultural animals—mostly chickens—have perished in similar fires over the past ten years.
