Panhandle wildfire documentary ‘We’re Here’ captures ranchers’ resilience

In late February and early March, a set of wildfires burned millions of acres in the Texas Panhandle. The Smokehouse Creek fire grew to the largest wildfire in state history. The fire killed two people, thousands of cattle, and caused millions of dollars in property damage.

As firefighters extinguished the final few embers, a film crew arrived in the Panhandle to interview people in the immediate aftermath of the blaze. The result is the documentary “‘We’re Here,” which has been screened in theaters across the Panhandle over the past few weeks.

Lee Wells, the film’s director, spoke to Texas Standard about making the movie. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: You started shooting this just about two weeks after the fire had started. Tell us about the sort of things you saw in the direct aftermath.

Lee Wells: Well, sure. We were hauling feed and hay out to the ranchers. And on one of those trips, I grabbed a film crew and realized we needed to capture this now, while it’s still a thing, before the grass comes back – before people move on with their lives.

And I’m so glad we did. We’ve got just amazing footage of just a lot of real reaction, response, conversation around this tragedy. And it turned out to be pretty cool. Really, a neat project.

What did you hear from folks who were actually fighting the fire? What was their experience like?

Most of the people I talked to are ranchers. I’m a rancher here in the north-of-Dallas area. So I was out talking to ranchers from a ranchers perspective.

That’s how I was able to sit down with them in the first place. I wasn’t a reporter, not a journalist. And so from a rancher to a rancher, they opened up and their response was, first of all, they were overwhelmed by the magnitude of this fire, the speed of this fire and the destruction of the fire.

But they were also overwhelmed by the outpouring of generosity from strangers across the state and even just all over the United States, people just pouring out help and hope. And it was amazing. It was an amazing thing to sit down and try to consume or try to understand this process from their point of view.

Maybe for folks who are not from rural communities or are unfamiliar with agriculture – when something like this happens, what do people need immediately? What are the emergency items?

The main difference in this type of tragedy and something like a tornado or a hurricane that would take out a populated area is the needs were mainly agricultural.

There were some homes that were destroyed. They needed blankets, clothes, water, food. Of course, the firefighters that were working the fire needed water and Gatorade and all of that. But our focus was to help the ranchers who had lost everything.

This fire was about 100 miles wide. And at that point, the winds came from the north and pushed it south. The wind direction changed and they had a 100-mile-wide fire pushing down south at 60 to 70 miles an hour. And it was taking out everything in its path. I mean, numerous ranches that were destroyed. All of their grass was gone, all of their hay stores, all of their barns, homes. Thousands of cattle.

And so the main needs that we were trying to alleviate at that point was the cattle needed something to eat to survive until they could move them or figure out how to handle their situation. So hay came from everywhere, feed – all kinds of supplements and help. Fencing, supplies, those kinds of things. So that was the immediate need at that time.

What kind of condition is this country in now?

They’ve been fortunate to receive several good rains across this year and since the fire. And I was just out last week driving through all of this country and it is amazing how quickly it’s come back out.

Some places better than others, but as a whole, there is at least something growing most places out there and keeping the erosion in the wind from driving the the dust in the sand. So some places look better than others.

Some areas are better than others, but it looks a whole lot better than than when we first went out, starting to capture the charred ground. I wouldn’t say it’s back to normal. It’ll take some time to get back to what it was, but it is on its way.

What has stuck with you most about some of the conversations you had with these ranchers?

The number one thing that I take away from this whole experience is that these folks in the Panhandle, they’re hard working. They’re kind of private. They live in the middle of nowhere. And they’re okay with that. They’re 20 to 40 miles from the closest gas station, some of them, and they’re fine doing that.

But when something like this happens, they become activated to help a neighbor – to reach out and protect a neighbor’s home from the flames. They were more concerned about their neighbors than they were themselves.

And I think that in this documentary, you see that. You feel that you understand that these people, while they were going through one of the hardest times of their lives, still were concerned with their neighbor and their fellow man. And I think that that is going to live with me forever.

I understand that through this documentary effort, you’ve also provided direct support to folks recovering. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Well, we started on March 1, helping send donated hay from our area out to theirs. And so we’ve now sent over 1,200 bales of hay. We worked a deal with a local feed mill. They produce feed for us to send at cost. So we’ve sent a half million pounds of feed out that way to those ranchers, and about five miles of fence.

We teamed up with Reach Out Worldwide, which is Paul Walker’s organization, and he’s left that now to his brother Cody. But they worked with us to help pull out five miles of burned fence and put back brand new fence. And that was an amazing effort for three different landowners out there.

So there’s a lot of efforts that have gone in, lots of folks that have helped from all over the area. That was our small part. We’ve sent about $350,000 worth of help to these ranchers through our efforts here of donated funds and donated help and supplies.

If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.