‘Kind of gruesome’: Kansas family looks to recover livelihood after wildfires kill cattle
Rich Koester and his family started a GoFundMe after wildfires that swept through western Kansas this week tore through his pasture, killing roughly a third of the family’s cow and calves.
Koester was stuck at home Wednesday night. Though he wanted to go check on the cattle at his large pasture 50 miles away near Paradise in Russell County, Kansas, and bring them home, with the high winds, he couldn’t make the hour-long commute.
When text messages from his daughters about wildfires near him began flooding in he immediately got concerned.
“I got on my phone to my neighbor that lives right next to our pasture, or has the patch right next to us, and asked him what he knew about it. And he says, ‘There’s a fire coming through and it doesn’t look good,’” Koester told The Star.
The wildfires, propelled by high winds from Colorado and sparked by downed power lines, swept through Russell County, leaving destroyed homes and farm land in their wake. Winds reached gusts of 100 mph, according to officials. The fires were still burning through Friday.
Koester had to wait until morning to make the hour-long trek and see if any cattle had survived.
Early Thursday morning, after quickly going through morning chores and driving the 50 miles with his wife, Koester found that about one third of the cattle he had on the pasture died. In total, he estimates, about 60 heads of cattle – cows and calves – died.
The cattle that have died so far are worth about $75,000 alone, without factoring in the calves that cows could have in the future, he said.
As of Saturday morning, the GoFundMe had raised more than $15,000 of the $20,000 goal.
“You know, it’s not real nice to find dead (cattle) – it’s kind of gruesome,” Koester said.
Koester has had the pasture near Paradise for over 30 years and has been farming for about 45 years, he said. The livestock is the family’s livelihood and recovering from the fire will take years.
Koester considers himself one of the luckier ranchers in the area – some of his neighbors lost their homes and all of their livestock to the wildfires, he said.
The KWCH 12 website has a list of other GoFundMe fundraisers to help families also recovering after the wildfires.
“Lots of times, it’s a lot harder than people really think as you spend a lot more time out there with the cattle,” Koester said. “Whether it’s heat or the cold…dams and floods…droughts...and now we got fire and I just thought what other calamity are we going to have to face again?”
People have been helping, Koster said – bringing feed, water and working to get things done during the short winter days. His children have also all traveled home to help gather the remaining cattle and bring them to their family farm near Hoisington, Kansas.
“Most of the people that are helping, they understand because most have had something, you know, hardship through their life too, so they know that people have helped them. So they’re just returning the favor,” he said.
