Johnson County farmers deliver supplies, hope after Kansas wildfires
FRANKLIN, Ind. (WISH) — Long before the sun comes up, the lights are turning on at John Canary’s farm.
“It’s just what we do. The animals always come first,” he said. The habit of waking up to feed in the dark is in his blood.
“We’ve been farming in Johnson County for about six generations,” he said. “To imagine that we lost all of this… and that’s what those people out there lost.”
Out there, in Kansas. The largest wildfire in Kansas history killed livestock and destroyed homes and hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
“I’ve been thinking about wanting to go. I knew there was going to be an ongoing need,” he said.
So he did, along with his wife, Amanda, and five others.
“That’s just what we do, if we had a problem we know we could rely on people from there,” Canary said.
They left Friday with an old trailer, hauling 20 tons of hay, feed and fence supplies to Clark County, Kansas.
“You pass home after home or farmstead after farmstead of just rubble,” Canary said.
“It was eye opening. I’d never seen devastation like that,” Amanda Canary said.
“As far as you can see, nothing but burnt fields, burnt pasture land,” John said.
It’s a loss hitting people just like them.
“When we were driving up, there was a guy welcoming us, pretty much and then he told him where we were from and he said ‘Indiana?’ And he burst into tears,” Amanda said.
There have been several funds set up to help those impacted by the wildfires in Kansas and several other states:
- Working Ranch Cowboys Association
- Ashland Community Foundation
- Kansas Livestock Association
- Kansas Department of Agriculture