By MARK BUTZOW

Farm World Associate Editor

LONDON, Ohio — Farmers and livestock producers are stepping up to help ranchers in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado who are reeling from lost livestock, fencing, buildings and grazing land that were wiped out by ferocious wildfires earlier this month.

At least seven people died, including three ranch hands in Texas who were trying to move cattle away from the fast-moving flames.

More than 1.5 million acres were scorched in the region – 600,000 acres in Kansas, 500,000 across the Texas panhandle, 100,000 acres in Oklahoma and 32,000 acres in Colorado – and many thousands of cattle, calves and horses were killed by the fast-moving fires.

Many producers are starting over, having lost homes and farm buildings as well as their stock. Bulldozers are being used to dig large pits and bury dead animals. That’s what struck Ohio farmer Kelton Keller when he learned about the disaster.

“Fifth-generation farmers that had been breeding to get the correct animal in their herd … now wiped out and gone,” he said. “It made me cry like a little baby.” And it made him want to help.

For others, livestock survived, but the animals have little in the way of grass, hay or stored feed to eat.

Farm groups and individual farmers have leapt into action over the past two weeks, and as a result, truck convoys have filled highways in the nation’s midsection, hauling hay, cattle feed, milk replacer for the many calves who lost mothers, fencing materials and other supplies to help ranchers through the immediate crisis.

“I was reading on social media about the devastation in Kansas and elsewhere and how farmers and ranchers were struggling to feed their livestock because their pastures burned in the wildfires,” said John Canary of Franklin, Ind. Canary and several other Indiana Farm Bureau members in central Indiana made the 2,000-mile roundtrip March 17-19 to deliver donated hay to ranchers in desperate need of feed for their livestock.

A similar impromptu collection happened mid-month around Medina, Ohio, resulting in five farmers taking two 30-foot trailers loaded with hay bales to eastern Colorado. Their shipment arrived March 16.

What has become a nationwide initiative spread across social media, and larger collection projects are under way.

One such coordinated effort last week involved school children, FFA chapters, feed stores and farmers providing surplus hay and use of trailers and trucks. The result was a convoy of almost 100 people and 50 loaded vehicles that left Ohio on Friday for Ashland, Kan. One of the organizers, Rose Hartschuh of Lykens, Ohio, said their donations had a value of $100,000.

In addition to donated hay, which accounted for about two-thirds of the cargo, “these were new items that people bought. And 10 tons of cattle feed donated from feed companies in Ohio,” she said.

Half of those in the convoy stayed in Kansas for two extra days.

“Our group is working in the Englewood (Kan.) area today clearing damaged fence,” she said Monday. “The first step in the rebuilding process is clearing out the ruined fence so crews can come through and put in new fence. The area is still waiting for rain so the pastures can start regenerating.”

Those looking for a way to get involved are directed to www.beefusa.org/firereliefresources.aspx, which provides addresses of collection points in each affected state as well as websites, phone numbers and relief fund addresses for those able to make monetary donations.