Southern Plains Blaze May Be Out, But Relief Still Needed

The wildfires in Kansas may be extinguished, but the need for help is far from over. Ranch families say the community needs assistance now more than ever.

“The sensational pictures of burned animals and fire taking the grass and homes being burned are going to go away,” said Erin Boggs, a resident of Meade, Kan. “People are going to stop helping.”

She said in a year, people in her area is going to be when people need help the most.

“In eyes of those who are affected, it’s worse now than it was when it was burning, because now they know how bad it is and they know how hard it is going to be to come back from that,” she said.

That sentiment is echoed by Rachelle Schlochtermeier, also from Meade.

“The aftermath is when everybody is going to have to get down and dirty and they’re going to start realizing the true impacts,” she said. “For the last three or four days the producers didn’t know what they had left alive and what they were going to have to put down.”

Boggs’ parents were impacted by the wild fire. They lost roughly 85 percent of their replacement heifers, which is quite a loss since they were artificially inseminated