Texas’ biggest wildfire started a year ago. How does the Panhandle look now?

Osier Lindley, who visited Canadian in the aftermath of the fire and again one year later, said the state of recovery depends on the person.

“Canadian has a population of just over 2,000 people. More than 50 homes in that town were lost. So if you did not lose your house personally, you know someone or multiple people who did,” she said. “There isn’t one person who wasn’t affected. And of course, these memories are coming back this week.”

Mallori Willhelm, a mother of five and the wife of a rancher, said the anniversary of the fire is bringing up a lot of emotions.

“I’m feeling a lot of emotions that I kind of thought that I was past,” Willhelm said. “Just reliving like, oh, one year ago today, I was in my home that I lost one year ago tomorrow, clueless that my life was about to change. So very emotional, but grateful. There’s so, so many good people. And when you go through something like that, that’s when you see I’m actually, one year later, still working on thank you notes.”

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Driving around town, Osier Lindley said you can still see where rebuilding efforts are taking place.

“Parts of it look like any other small town in Texas,” she said. “In other areas, you see where these burned-down houses have been torn down. I went to visit a home where you could clearly see the old basement of this 100-year-old house, just steps going into the ground, and these burned remnants of the house around it. So it depends on where you look.”

Ranchers expect their land to take years to recover.

“There was some rain. It is revitalizing a little bit. But ranchers told me that it is still nowhere near what they need to appropriately graze their cattle,” Osier Lindley said. “I heard from some people saying that, especially on the ranch lands, that it could be a three-, five-, even seven-year recovery cycle: rebuilding these herds, replenishing the grasslands and recovering financially.

“And of course, these ranches have thousands and thousands of miles of fencing. And people have told me they’ve been fencing for the last 11 months and still have miles to go.”