Oklahoma and Kansas Suffering Devastating Loss With Massive Wildfire Still Growing

Currently, the western world is under attack by the devastating hand of Mother Nature as a massive wildfire has swept the plains, specifically Oklahoma and Kansas. Typically, brush fires come during the summer when things start to really heat up, but this has been a very strange winter with little to no moisture.

The devastation is rapidly growing, and with growing winds, it seems that the totals could ultimately be unfathomable. As of February 19, per the Earth Data Base via NASA, in both Kansas and Oklahoma, there are over 283,000 acres burnt, primarily in Oklahoma.

The containment was a mere 15 percent as of yesterday, the 19th, and this will be forever known as the Ranger Road Fire, which started in Oklahoma on Tuesday, the 17th, and then spread across the southern border of Kansas.

Oklahoma is known notoriously for its cattle production and contributes in great proportions to the beef industry. The scariest part about fires of this magnitude, and in areas like the plains, is that they spread rapidly at an incomprehensible speed.

People don't have time to get any of their belongings, as their priorities shift towards the animals' lives, which are their livelihood. More often than not, families don't have the available equipment or enough time to move cows to safety, so the only option is to open gates and hope they find their way to safety.

Sometimes this works, others it does not.

Another aspect of the livelihoods to look at is the well-known rodeos that travel to these parts during the early spring and summer. Selfishly, contestants love these rodeos, but unselfishly, a lot of these towns rely on the incomes that come from their fairs, concerts, and the rodeo itself.

Vendors from town set up, and crowds are drawn from all across the state,e including rodeos like Woodward, Okla., which is actively burning per the National Interagency Fire Center.

This is going to affect many across multiple industries, some more than others with houses and livestock lost. The aftermath is far from determined as the blazes roar on, but there are ranchers in Kansas already in mourning for what has been lost.

Seward County Rancher Left With Nothing

Brown horse and donkey on the road — A horse and a donkey walk along Anderson Rd. after escaping their pens because of the wild fires there in the area of Oklahoma | DOUG HOKE/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Seward County is directly north of the Oklahoma border in the southwest corner of Kansas, a very, very rural part of the state that housed Randall Thorp, his wife, his disabled son, and his elderly mother. Once the fire had moved on out of his town, Kismet, they were able to go back to their acerage to see the destruction, and it was a brutal sight.

Thorp spoke with journalist Sydney Ferguson via their local news station (the Kake) about seeing his entire place dismantled:

"He tried to get his family’s dog to evacuate with them, but it wouldn’t come and ultimately died in the fire. He and his wife, Donna, lost the home they lived in for the past 40 years, his 95-year-old grandmother’s home, another empty house on the property, and two barns," he told Ferguson.

But that wasn't all. Along with priceless family memories, Thorp says 800 acres of the 1280-acre ranch burned, leaving him without much of his farm equipment and no grass to feed his cattle.

If there is anything to know about the Western community, it is that everybody is going to come together when this is all said and done. It is a long road ahead, and there are no words to comfort the loss.

The only thing to do when this is finally over is show up for everyone that has lost everything.