A year after Texas’ largest wildfire, Panhandle residents tugged between hope and anxiety

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CANADIAN — Past the terracotta canyons and sloping hills in the Texas Panhandle is a colorful, small town center. A vibrant mural of the town’s name greets visitors, the yellow and blue paint from a historic motel can be seen in the distance, and the theater’s golden lights shine on the town’s landscape.

The color starts to drain on the outskirts. Land once full of lush, green trees is a blur of black and gray. The ground is darkened by dead grass. The burnt landscape outside of town is punctuated by bright red and yellow signs warning travelers not to enter what was once a scenic route.

The difference is clear to Remelle Farrar, 68, a longtime Canadian resident. She used to show the area to visitors, touting the beauty surrounding the town.

“But all of this burned,” Farrar said.

Canadian, the county seat of Hemphill with a population of about 2,300, sits in the northeast corner of Texas’ Panhandle. One year ago, Panhandle residents watched as a flock of wildfires incinerated much of the land, killing three people, more than 15,000 head of cattle and destroying 138 structures. Among the fires was the Smokehouse Creek, which became the largest in state history, blazing through more than a million acres of land.

Miraculously, the town center was spared. But the residents nevertheless are unsettled.

Canadian stands out among many of Texas’ smallest communities for the residents’ survival mentality. Critical necessities in the boom-and-bust town — internet access, street lights, and their hospital — are in Canadian because of the people there, without federal government assistance.

As resilient as they are, residents in Canadian are coping through trauma — and have been for a long time. The small town has been shaken by three devastating events in the last decade. First, there was the disappearance of a local teenagerin 2016. The next year, a wildfire killed four people. And then there was the Smokehouse Creek fire.

The latest fire challenged residents to once again find a way to recover — mentally, physically, and financially. Industries that drove the town’s economy, such as ranching and tourism, took a major blow. Farrar said they can’t just survive any more, and they have to find new ways to thrive. If they don’t, she worries Canadian could become another ghost town in the Panhandle.

“We would have survived until the fire,” Farrar said. “Now we really get to decide what we’re going to do,” she said.

It’s difficult to focus on the future when you’re haunted by the past. Black scorch marks cover the splintered trees for miles in a scenic part of the county. Bundles of melted chairs and broken glass are scattered outside what was a community center. The wail of sirens responding to fresh fires echo through the town some days.

“It feels as if there’s a shadow,” said Wendie Cook, a council member. “We all know it’s coming. Some days it’s just harder to take in than others.”

By autumn of last year, signs of new grass and trees started to bring color back to the grasslands around Canadian. Town officials brought back the annual Fall Foliage Festival, a tradition since 1952.

However, visitors couldn’t go to Lake Marvin Lodge, a community center that once sat in the Black Kettle National Grasslands Park. The damage from the fire hasn’t been cleaned up.

It’s federal property, and local officials are not allowed to rehabilitate it.

Tall, brick fireplaces stand over the rubble — the only identifiable fixtures around. The rest of the center is shattered glass, chunks of wood and ashes among the dirt and black trees.

It bothers Farrar to be there. When she sees the debris scattered on the ground, she thinks of all the celebrations that were held there. Neighbors hosted baby showers, weddings, and family reunions there. Farrar’s friends threw her a swing dance party there for her 50th birthday.

“I have a lot of great memories here,” Farrar said. “A lot of people in the community do.”

There was concern outsiders would only think of Canadian as the place the fires burned, Farrar said.

It’s so much more than that. The town was founded in 1887. One of the first commercial rodeos in Texas was staged in Canadian in 1888. It was a battle site during the Red River War in 1874. One of the largest archaeological digs in the 1990s unearthed 2,400 artifacts in the area.

Town boosters spread the word that there were still businesses and events happening in Canadian — it did not burn down entirely, like some thought.

“It’s our responsibility to do enough things and advertise them well enough to get people back,” Farrar said. “Then the word will grow on its own.”

There’s pressure to mark the anniversary of fire — especially from people who did not live through it. Cook, who is also executive director for The Citadelle Art Museum, said it’s still too raw. That’s not what the community needs now.

“Those of us who did just really want to be quiet and say thank you for our ability to live through it,” Cook said. “There’s just not many areas where we’re allowed to be quiet and reflective.”

Occasionally, Cook sees the hurt Canadians still carry, and feels it herself too. When her son’s birthday came around, Cook went to get decorations she’d used since his first birthday.

“I realized they had all burned,” Cook said.

Life in Canadian was business as usual two weeks ahead of the one-year anniversary of the wildfires. Ranchers in the Panhandle were getting ready for the annual bull sale, where they eventually sold 270 Angus and Charlotte bulls and 70 calves. There were about 217 people there, but a big portion of the usual customers were absent.

“Our customers lost a lot,” said James Henderson, a Memphis rancher. “So they weren’t here to buy bulls. They don’t need bulls, they don’t have any fences.”

Craig Cowden, who lives in Canadian and ranches in nearby Pampa, was still there, despite how his business has changed since the fires. The Smokehouse Creek fire was the third in eight years to burn his ranch.

All of Cowden’s livestock survived the fires. He still doesn’t understand how. His neighbor’s cattle on the other side of the fence didn’t. He feels guilty.

After the fire, he moved his cows in pastures around the Panhandle and Eastern New Mexico for a few months. Some of the grass on his ranch has grown back, but not enough for his entire herd. He sold 60% of his cows so he didn’t push the land too far as it heals.

“It looks back to normal, but it’s not,” Cowden said. “The land is more fragile now, so how we manage it going forward is going to be the tricky part.”

Cowden has been working with Canadian officials to create a plan that reduces the risk of a fire reaching the city. This could include cleaning the dry brush and overgrown lots that can catch fire.

His ranch in Pampa is a different story. He says a lot of the fires started on his ranch because of unregulated power lines connected to oil wells. According to state officials, power lines have caused 14,236 fires since 2006. Cowden started inspecting them after the fires and reported them to the Railroad Commission. He says 103 violations have been written up on 75 wells.

As residents in Canadian have been worried about the future, their lawmaker and native son, state Rep. Ken King, is working in Austin to address the problems. King rushed home from campaigning when the fires broke out — only to leave when the town was evacuated. His house survived, the property around it didn’t. The fire was unlike anything he had ever seen, he said.

“It burned brick homes clear to the foundation like nothing,” King said.

On the anniversary of the fires, King said several people called to remind him. He hasn’t forgotten — King filed a bill that aims to give the Railroad Commission and Public Utility Commission authority to address unmaintained electrical operations on oil wells. According to investigators, this was the cause of last year’s fires. Both agencies have worked with lawmakers since, King said, to refine their role.

“The agencies feel like they need some direction from the legislature to do their part and stop these ignition sources,” King said.

Other proposals by King and state Sen. Kevin Sparks, R-Midland, could increase funding to rural volunteer fire departments, and create a database of readily-available firefighting equipment.

Henderson was a member of the House Investigative Committee looking into the fires led by King. He feels encouraged by the response, including how agencies changed how they respond to fires. Volunteer fire departments also got support, Henderson said, as charitable donations also helped cover equipment for firefighters.

“All these things together help put together a plan,” Henderson said. “The one thing I know we can’t do is keep having these kinds of wildfires in rural communities every few years. Their economies just can’t survive.”

The proposals at the Texas Legislature are helpful, residents say. However, the risk of a wildfire is more severe this time of the year, and one fire has already happened nearby. After that fire, Cowden, the rancher, got his fire truck out to make sure it was running smoothly and ready to go.

The area is a magnet for wildfires, which leaves them perpetually on alert, and ready to flee in a moment’s notice. Jessica, Craig Cowden’s wife, prepared a folder with important family documents, such as her children’s birth certificates. After a fire in 2022, she keeps the folder in their office, just in case.

“You kind of have PTSD from the last few years,” Jessica said.

The land surrounding the Cowden home still bears damage from the fires. The house used to be a nursery full of trees, which is partly why they bought it. The pine trees in the back have been reduced to stumps, while other trees have strips of fresh bark trying to grow through the charred pieces. A crew has finally made it around to fix the fence at their home after a long backlog of customers.

When the Cowden’s talk about the fires they’ve experienced in their 13-year marriage, the details blur together for them. They go back and forth, trying to remember exactly how many and which one caused what damage. They happen so frequently, Jessica said. But they have no interest in moving away.

“There’s something special about Canadian,” Jessica said.

Every year, Andy Holloway, the Hemphill County extension agent for Texas A&M AgriLife, a statewide educational agency, hosts a wildfire preparedness meeting. Usually, he can expect 30 to 40 people. This year, 135 people attended. He wasn’t sure they would all fit in the agency’s meeting room in Canadian.

“Any time there’s a spark, even when our heroes put it out, everyone’s antennas go up,” Holloway said. “The mental toll from this, the heartache, it’s basically torture.”

Holloway said the area is still extremely vulnerable this year, and residents have to be alert. A fire in Moore County, about 110 miles west of Canadian, sparked at the start of the month and burned nearly 4,000 acres.

Holloway said that while there are still people hurting from the fires, Canadian residents have an inherited propensity to overcome as their ancestors did. Floods took away the Canadian Bridge twice, and they rebuilt it. The Hemphill County courthouse burned down twice in its history, and residents designed it better each rebuild.

“Even though it’s tough and things are difficult, they just forge ahead,” Holloway said.

Farrar, who is the interim Director of Economic and Community Development, wants Canadian to become a resource for people to learn what to do after a wildfire. She wants everyone to remember what happened to the town, and how they recovered.

She likes to think something good can always come out of something bad, including the wildfires. She is alert too, but keeps thinking about how the red, yellow and orange fall leaves looked — a sight she thought she wouldn’t see again. Even though it was different, she said, it was still beautiful.

Disclosure: Texas A&M AgriLife has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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