Huge Texas Wildfires! We Are Ready For Your Help!
Volunteer Opportunity: Join Us in Fence Building Following the Texas Wildfires
Earlier this year, wildfires spread across the Texas Panhandle and parts of Oklahoma, devastating rural communities and destroying much of the ranchers’ fencing on 1.5 million acres of land. While immediate danger had passed, the recovery process was ongoing, and many families were still facing the challenges of rebuilding their homes, ranches, and livelihoods. Fences that once protected livestock and marked property boundaries had been burned, destroying both wire and posts, leaving ranchers and farmers in urgent need of assistance.
How you can help: Fellowship of Christian Farmers International (FCFI) is organizing volunteers to help rebuild fences in the affected areas. We need your hands and hearts to join us in this mission! No experience is required—just a willingness to serve. Together, we can help these communities restore their fences and regain the capacity to efficiently manage their herds by utilizing the grass on the range instead of buying costly hay. All of the programs that assist the ranchers with the cost of restoring the fence have only contributed a tiny fraction of the total cost. At least 50% of the fence remains to be rebuilt 6 months after the fires.
How to Get Involved:
- When: Throughout the next few months you can volunteer for a weekend, a week, or more, depending on your availability. We will attempt to team you up with others depending on your and their availability.
- Where: Texas Panhandle, near Amarillo and Canadian, Texas.
- What You’ll Do: Fence building
- If You have Questions or Considering: Call Jerry Rice our disaster coordinator located in Oklahoma at (580)516-1234 or Dan Janzen 616 676-6684 ED FCFI
- Support Through Prayer and Giving: If you can’t join in person, you can still make an impact. Please consider donating to help fund materials, tools, and food for volunteers.
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The Texas Panhandle wildfires took a significant toll on the region’s agricultural industry.
It was estimated that more than 7,000 cows died in the Texas wildfires and over 1,000 in Oklahoma. More than 1.5 million acres of land burned in the fires, including the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest wildfire in Texas history.
Many additional cows were euthanized due to their injuries. “Their hooves were burned off, their udders were burnt beyond – they couldn’t nurse their babies,” a local rancher said, “We actually ended up having to put a lot of cattle down just because they wouldn’t be able to make it, even though they survived.”
Maps showed the Smokehouse Creek fire spread across an area to the northeast of Amarillo, into the town of Canadian, and into Oklahoma. It was the largest of several fires to have broken out in the region, spurred on by warm temperatures and strong winds. The Texas governor Greg Abbott declared it a disaster.
Volunteers, we need you! The first locations that we will be building fence will be Canadian, Texas and Miami, Texas
(pronounced my-AM-eh). Our lead contact is Jerry Rice.
He can be reached at (580) 516-1234.