Even by Texas standards, South Fork Dairy was a behemoth. Its 18,000 cattle made it nearly 10 times larger than the average dairy herd in Texas.
It's not the first time large numbers of Texas cattle have died, but rarely do so many perish from a single fire. A blizzard in December 2015 killed off around 20,000 cattle across the Texas panhandle, according to the Texas Association of Dairymen. The dairy had opened in the area just over three years ago and employed between 50 to 60 people.
And Hurricane Harvey in 2017 drowned thousands more in Southeast Texas, leading to $93 million in livestock losses across the state, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
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