A young ranch foreman, his girlfriend and a family friend have died in America trying to save cattle from being burned in wildfires that are raging across the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Cody Crockett, foreman at the Franklin Ranch, Gray County, Texas, his girlfriend Sydney Wallace and their friend Sloan Everett were among seven people killed in wildfires in the Texas Panhandle, northwest Oklahoma and Kansas region this week.

Gray County judge Richard Peet told media that the trio were trying to move cattle away from the oncoming fire.

A fund has been set up in memory of Cody Crockett and Sydney Wallace to assist both families with funeral costs, to which more than $21,000 has already been donated.

Livestock losses

The fires have burned up to a million acres of land in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas and there are reports of severe livestock losses.

Rancher Austin Graham from Graham & Sons Cattle Company in Walburg, Texas, posted images of live cattle surrounded by flames and dead cattle burned in the fires.

The images were taken by his niece Andrea Daniel, an intern at the Gardiner Angus Ranch in Ashland, Kansas.

There were no human injuries or loss of human life on the Gardiner Angus Ranch, with everyone on the ranch and the town of Ashland evacuated.

“Pictures really don’t do any justice to just how much has been destroyed. There’s hundreds and hundreds of head of cattle, if not thousands of head of cattle burnt to death,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

There’s hundreds and hundreds of head of cattle, if not thousands of head of cattle burnt to death

It is understood that more than 300 in-calf heifers were found burnt to death in one pasture in the Ashland area of Kansas.

Several fires are burning across the three states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, fanned by winds of up to 60 miles per hour.

As well as the cattle burned to death in the fires, many more have survived with severe burns and are straying far from their own ranches.

Around 5,000 cattle are estimated to have been displaced in Texas alone.

Ranchers and vets are out searching for surviving animals, assessing their injuries and putting down those animals for whom it is more humane.

Burn injuries

Dr Ted McCollum, a cattle specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, said cattle that survived the fires needed to be checked as soon as possible.

Burned eyes, feet, udders, sheaths and testicles, as well as smoke inhalation with lung inflammation and edema, are the most common problems.

The fires have inflicted huge damage at the beginning of the calving season.

“We probably had a lot of calves that were laying out susceptible to the fire, as fast as it was moving across there,” McCollum said. “They had no place to go. Also, there will be a lot of mothers with potentially scorched udders. The calves that survived won’t be able to suckle the mothers that have sore udders. Producers should be looking for bawling calves to provide replacement milk to or to sell to someone who can care for them.”