All Cody Crockett ever wanted to be was a cowboy. And for a short time, he got his wish.
Crockett worked on the 9,000-acre Franklin Ranch, about 70 miles northeast of Amarillo, where on March 6, a massive wildfire broke out.
Cody, his girlfriend Sydney Wallace, and rancher Sloan Everett, were killed while trying to rescue livestock.
Texas Monthly features the trio in an article that also includes photos and video.
Todd Lindley with the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, who specializes in weather on the 500-mile southern Great Plains that runs from Kansas to just below the Texas Panhandle, is also featured in the article. Lindley predicted days before that there would be an outbreak of wildfires, after observing a storm system in the Pacific.
The wildfire near Franklin Ranch was one of an estimated 32 wildfires that broke out across the High Plains that day, scorching over 1.2 million acres of land, which Lindley said made it “the largest individual Plains fire outbreak documented in the modern era.”