"U.S. Plains Wildfires Leave Thousands Of Cattle Dead"

"Fast-moving wildfires that burned through nearly 2 million acres (809,380 hectares) of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas this week have devastated ranches and left thousands of cattle and other livestock dead, officials said on Thursday.

Many of the grass fires grew rapidly on Monday due to dry weather and parched prairie land in the Texas Panhandle, north and western Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Several of the blazes were largely contained on Thursday as hundreds have battled the blazes on the ground and in the air.

Six people have been killed in the fires, including three ranch hands in Texas who died trying to protect cattle from oncoming flames. The fires in Kansas were the largest recorded, at about 631,000 total acres (255,350 hectares), state officials said."

Jon Herskovitz reports for Reuters March 9, 2017.