Ranch fire damage at $26 million

Estimated damages suffered by cattle producers in last month’s western Oklahoma wildfires have risen to
 $26 million, a news release issued Wednesday by the Oklahoma State University Extension Service stated.
That figure is still expected to rise as more information is received, said Derrell Peel of the Cooperative Extension Service.
A majority of the losses reported so far has been for fence replacement and repair. It’s estimated at $16.4 million. Burned corrals and other facilities total $6.3 million and emergency feed $1.6 million.
Livestock themselves – both those killed and destroyed because of their injuries – were set at $1.4 million. Burned pasture and hay have been estimated so far at $660,000.
Estimates to date are 1,600 head of cattle and 2,100 miles of fencing lost.
Total acreage burned is set at almost 350,000 acres. The majority of that was from the Rhea Fire with the remainder from the 34Complex Fire.
Mike Galloway, Custer County’s emergency management director, said at Monday’s county commissioner meeting he thought the Rhea Fire started less than a mile north of the Rhea Church building just off State Highway 47 in the southern part of Dewey County.
The 34Complex Fire evidently was named after State Highway 34 which in that part of the state runs north out of Elk City along the Custer-Roger Mills county line and then on north through Leedey, Camargo, Vici and Sharon to Woodward.
Acreage burned by the Rhea Fire was more than five times that of the 34Complex Fire. Specific estimates released by OSU were 286,196 acres for the former and 62,481 for the latter, almost all of it in Woodward County. The total for both fires was just over 350,000 acres.
OSU’s total for square miles burned was 547.
Peel said the loss estimates don’t include vehicles, farming equipment, homes or other personal property, and the losses could cause long-lasting financial setbacks to the ranchers involved. He didn’t expect livestock prices to be impacted.