‘Nothing but tree skeletons’: record-breaking wildfires devastate US cattle country

In a normal year, the vast grasslands that roll across the American Great Plains would be starting to green. But at the center of the US, where most of the nation’s beef producers graze their herds, this spring brought fire instead of moisture, leaving more than a million acres black and barren.

Multiple blazes raged across Nebraska, where the records for the annual acreage burned were obliterated in a single month. The state logged the largest blaze ever recorded when the Morrill fire cascaded across more than 642,000 acres before it was contained in March.

Fire is not a stranger to this region early in the year, when precipitation is low, grasses are dry and dormant, and strong winds howl through the open flats. While other parts of the American west face their biggest fire threats in summer and fall, grasslands are more primed to burn in the spring.

In recent years, however, the risks have sharply risen, along with the size and impact of bigger blazes.

“There is a changing wildfire dynamic in this region,” Dr Dirac Twidwell, a rangeland ecologist at the University of Nebraska, said, describing how a cycle of extreme conditions can create more catastrophes. Stronger summer storms seed the grasses that cure by winter. If there’s no protective snow cover, that browned vegetation ramps up fire risks – especially when the winds begin to blow.

This year, those conditions converged to create the perfect storm in Nebraska. After parts of the state were pummeled with rains last summer, winter was the second warmest on record and the fourth driest.

“The probability of ignition just goes through the roof,” Twidwell added. “The deck has been stacked.”

Fueled by rising temperatures, extremes across the seasons, and land management practices, cattle country has been hammered by spring fires in recent years.

In February 2024, the largest wildfire in Texas history turned the Panhandle’s picturesque hillsides into a moonscape. Local officials estimated at the time that more than 10,000 livestock deaths were linked to the disaster. The following year, Oklahoma burned through March, as dozens of conflagrations claimed hundreds of homes and four lives.

The grim trend continued in March of 2026 in Nebraska. Officials are still working to tally the devastation from a massive blaze, which moved so fast it covered more than 70 miles in the first 12 hours. The Morrill fire claimed the life of 86-year-old Rose White, a great-grandmother, as she tried to flee her home on the Nebraska prairie. It reduced parts of the Nebraska Sandhills – one of the largest temperate grasslands still intact across earth – to ash and sand.

The Morrill fire was just one of many fires that erupted in the state in recent weeks. Miles of fencing and forage are gone. Thousands of livestock were killed or severely burned.

“There are areas where you see nothing but tree skeletons,” Collin Thompson, a Nebraska rancher, said, visibly emotional as he gazed upon his lands left desolate by the roughly 130,000-acre blaze called the Cottonwood fire. Speaking in a video produced by the Nebraska farm bureau, Thompson likened his property to a war zone. “As this fire ripped through here, it took all the grass,” he said. “There’s none left.”

Drier winters, greater challenges

Homer Buell, a fourth generation rancher, said he had never seen a winter quite as dry as this one. His family’s land was spared the recent onslaught, but he had felt the changing conditions and worked with his community to navigate the challenges.

The cattle industry’s feeding operation is concentrated on the Great Plains and the fires could deal a long-term blow if grasses don’t rebound quickly. In Nebraska, one of the top producers in the US and a state where cattle outnumber people 4 to 1, worries about range recovery are high. It’s unlikely, according to experts, that grazing will be possible on burned lands this year.

Tight-knit ranching communities stretch far beyond state lines and include many who have experienced tragedies of their own. Donated hay has come in from across the country, brought by volunteer truckers and others eager to lend a hand. But cattlemen are still pinning their hopes that good summer rains will provide relief from the dryness and start regrowth on burnt ranges.

More than 40% of Nebraska had been categorized in “extreme drought” at the end of March, and across the High Plains, which also includes Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas and the Dakotas, roughly half of the region is in “severe drought”. Rangelands and water supplies are being affected by “significant drought challenges” in Texas and Oklahoma, according to a federal drought status update issued on 2 April.

The wettest months are still ahead for the Great Plains, which sees the bulk of its precipitation in the spring and summer. If the rains fall short – or if they come too hard and heavy – affected communities may continue to struggle.

That’s why Buell said the biggest impacts of the fire could come long after the flames were extinguished. “Losing that feed source for the cattle or whatever livestock they’re running is a secondary effect,” Buell said. “The secondary effects are just as bad and maybe worse in some ways if you happen to get the rain after,” he added. “Now, if we don’t get rain – well, it’s really a very sad and bad situation.”

Fires will happen in a grassland system

Experts, though, are assured that the lands will rebound – and perhaps healthier than they were before.

Long before these landscapes were dotted with ranches and farms, wildfires regularly swept across the grasslands. Fires started naturally and also were fostered by Indigenous people, which helped clear and regenerate vegetation and soils.

“I hate to say benefit because I understand these fires have been extremely detrimental to people,” said Dr Victoria Donovan, assistant professor of forest management at the University of Florida. “But when fires burn at high intensity they can actually help to restore the grassland state.”

Without regular fires, woody shrubs and trees have begun to encroach on the grasslands, posing problems for ranchers and native ecosystems alike. They also increase the risks of extreme fire behavior, Donovan said. “The idea that we can completely remove fire from these systems isn’t really feasible,” she said. “Fires will happen in a grassland system.”

Twidwell agrees. He and his team of researchers have studied recovery after fires in this region and he thinks their findings could provide a silver lining for those who have been affected. There are also opportunities to change land-management practices that will help preserve grasslands as the world continues to warm. Extensive cattle grazing has changed the landscapes, along with a history of fire suppression, and both have contributed to the rising risks.

“It’s not a question of if it can recover or not,” he said. “But how do you navigate given how people tend to manage these landscapes today and how can we do a better job of coexisting with this reality in the future?”

It’s a question Buell has long been asking himself and others as a local leader. He’s looking to the land itself for answers.

“In those early years I looked out and didn’t look down enough,” he said, describing how the grasses and wildlife have since become his focus.

These blazes have brought more attention to ranching and what ranchers are managing, and he hopes these lessons go with it. He now shares the work with his son, the fifth generation of Buells on the land. Most cattlemen, he said, want to pass their land down “and everything that resides there” to the next generation. “That means managing the soil, the wildlife and the grasses.”