AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – Recovery efforts are underway with volunteers from all over hauling hay to the region for ranchers and farmers impacted.
Texas rancher Lee Wells says the first 60 bales of hay donations have reached the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle and have been dropped off to ranchers who have lost land, cattle, and barns in the most recent fires.
Volunteers are offering their time, money, and resources to continue these efforts while the need is there.
“It’s refreshing to see the help from people that they don’t even know. They’ll never meet and they’ll never see them,” says Wells. “But they understand the need and good people understand when it’s their time to step up and it’s their turn to step up, and if they can see a place where they can help. Maybe they got a few extra bucks. They’re grateful they’re not scraping through ashes themselves. So, it hits them and they give or they participate. It’s always refreshing to see the help from other people come in.”
Wells provided recovery efforts two years ago and says due to the similarity of this year’s fires, they will start with hay drop-offs.
This is because it is the direst need with some ranchers needing an immediate way to feed their livestock after losing large portions of their grazing land.
“The similarities are that we have cattle that have to be fed because they are standing on charred ground with nothing to eat in their entire pastures,” says Wells. “The ranchers are completely burned off, so our goal now, just as it was two years ago, is to get hay to them as quick as possible. So that we are able to contain those cattle up around the barn in certain areas, so they don’t wander and of course feed them as well.”
Click here to donate.
Wells says his team is working to make donation drop-offs straight to the ranchers and are working to find what other resources are needed.
Copyright 2026 KFDA. All rights reserved.