The cattle have since been located but have burns on their stomachs along with singed fur.

“I gotta give them shots and antibiotics just to keep them from getting sick,” Perdue said. He said the open burn wounds on the cattle make them susceptible to infection and the cows have likely incurred lung damage from smoke inhalation as well.

In addition to his injured cattle, Perdue also lost 400 bales of hay, a tractor and an entire pasture with a fence and grass. The bales account for around $30,000 in losses alone.

“I myself don’t have a ton of cleanup other than just trying to keep my animals alive and keep them from getting sick. But there’s other families that lost their entire family farmsteads, vehicles and combines, all sorts of stuff went up in that fire,” Perdue said.

Submitted Photo Small fires still burn in various places in the Ray area and fill the low valleys with smoke on Sunday evening. Photo by Roger Riveland.

Perdue was out fighting the first fire with the Ray Volunteer Fire Department when he got the call that a second fire was rolling in.

“By the time I was able to get over there to the second fire, the fire had already rolled through,” he said.

Thankfully, Perdue had told his wife and family to evacuate south to get ahead of the flames. The family’s home was also safe from damage and despite the large hay loss, Perdue still has enough grass to feed his cattle through the winter.

“I lucked out. I lost a tractor and hay, but that’s all replaceable. A lot of them lost a lot of cattle that are irreplaceable. You know, that’s their livelihood. It’s their yearly income,” Perdue said.

Perdue’s neighbors lost a few hundred head of cattle that were either burned to death or had to be put down because of their substantial burn injuries.

“This is hopefully a once in a lifetime deal here. Hopefully I never have to see nothing like this again,” Perdue said.

During his time as a volunteer firefighter, Perdue had never seen a fire of this scale before.

“It’s never usually anything close to being this big. I’ve been told it’s probably the largest fires that North Dakota’s seen, at least in many, many years,” he said.

“I was only on the fire for about two hours and then I took off to go try and save all the livestock over in that area. But then I got trapped on the north side of the fire and I couldn’t get back to the fire trucks to help out,” Perdue said of his firefighting on Saturday.

The Ray Volunteer Fire Department was out all night on Saturday and Sunday, fighting to contain the destructive fires.

“I think a couple of the guys did a 24-hour shift. And yesterday afternoon when we got all the livestock handled, I jumped in fire trucks to give the other guys some breaks,” Perdue said. Perdue was out fighting the fires all day Sunday until midnight.

According to Perdue, the fires are technically out but there are spots that continually keep rekindling and starting back up.

“We just actually got another fire call here about an hour ago,” Perdue said on Monday of a fire that had started back up around 9 a.m.

“I mean, there was so much fire the other day that there’s trees that are just still burning,” he said. “And then a little bit of wind breeze will pick the ember up and throw it on some dry grass (and ) restart the fire.”

Perdue was told that the likely cause of the fires was due to high winds knocking down some powerline poles.

“That sparked the fires. And then another one where a tree fell on a power line, knocked the powerline down,” Perdue said.

Perdue is 33 years old and his family has been ranching in the area for 40-some years. He has been helping run the ranch since he was a child.

“To the ranchers and farmers that truly lost a substantial amount of animals and equipment, I feel for them,” he said.