Oklahoma ranchers still recovering from wildfires

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Thousands of acres were burned and hundreds of cattle were killed during devastating wildfires a couple weeks ago in western Oklahoma.

News 4 spoke with two ranchers who were both at a loss for words, but not a loss in faith after their land was charred to the root.

However, thanks to the help around the state, they are moving forward.

"It's overwhelming," said Kenneth Moyer with Moyer Ranch.

Overwhelming is an understatement after losing nearly everything they have put their blood, sweat and tears into.

"We operate on about 8,500 acres of grass," Moyer said. "We're a cow calf producer and we lost 7,500 acres of grass, and at the time we had 450 head of cattle and we lost approximately 70 head of those."

"Several thousand acres of our land here in northern Ellis County, and it went through, we're estimating 35 miles of fence," said Caleb Chapman with Thurman Ranch and Chapman Livestock.

Neighboring ranchers are dealing with similar destruction—nothing left but ashes and dead cattle covering the land.

"It's been a process of finding the dead ones and burying them and finding the survivors and and making determinations on their health and what they needed and ultimately moving them out of the burn area to get with some grass," Moyer said.

Moyer says they had about an hour to save what they could and move the cattle as best as possible, before the fire was in their backyard.

"We stayed here as long as we could," Moyer said. "We were moving cattle and putting sprinklers up and trying to minimize the fire risk of this house as much as we could."

However, the time came when they had to evacuate, not knowing if they would come back to a house up in flames or still intact.

"It got to a point where you could feel the heat, you could see the flames, and it was just turn black with the soot, dirt and smoke that came in here," Moyer said. "You know, at that point, like, there is no reason to stick a stick around here. We done all we could."

Thankfully, fire crews arrived and helped keep the fire away from their house, but just down the road, one family wasn't as lucky.

"It was a tear choking phone call to them when we described what was left and what wasn't left," Moyer said.

After the wildfires ravaged through western parts of Oklahoma, this is all that was left, ashes blowing through the wind, but not even a week later and donations to help started coming in.

"This is all our donated hay that came in days, if not hours after the fire," Chapman said.

Hay bales, feed and other supplies began to arrive within days to help those who lost so much.

"A great outpouring of love and support," Moyer said. "We've had a lot of donations coming in from Kansas, from Oklahoma, Texas, truckload after truckload."

Moyer says ranchers are a prideful group; they don't like asking for help and feel guilty when they receive it.

"I think it's a little uncomfortable taking donations," Moyer said. "We're a pretty independent group out here, and it's a little bit hard to to to accept that."

The path to regain what was lost is not an easy one, but going through it with people by your side eases the burden.

"Just thankful for the support you have and just how caring other people are," Moyer said. "That's a part we need to take away from this. There'll be that opportunity where we can turn around and help somebody else out, whether it's a wildfire or what. But, we're on our way to recovery."

Kenneth, his brother Cliff, and Caleb want to say thank you to everyone who donated supplies to them.

They say as long as another wildfire doesn't break out, by this time next year they will be back to normal.