The deadliest barn fire in American history claimed more than 18,000 lives of cows after an explosion and fire at a family dairy farm in west Texas.

According to pictures and testimony from the Castro County Sheriff's Office, firefighters saved one employee from the South Fork Dairy in Dimmitt on Monday as flames tore through a structure and into holding pens.

PHOTO | COURTESY cows die in a fire accident

Members of the family that own the farm in one of Texas' counties with the highest milk production could not be reached right away since the cause of the fire was being investigated.

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One of the oldest animal protection organizations in the United States, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), called for federal legislation in response to the incident to avoid barn fires, which claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of agricultural animals every year.

PHOTO | COURTESY cows

According to an AWI statement, there are no federal restrictions safeguarding animals from fires, and only a few states, Texas not included, have established fire prevention codes for such structures.

Since the AWI started monitoring such accidents in 2013, the fire was the most catastrophic barn fire involving cattle in the United States. Over the past ten years, over 6.5 million farm animals—mostly chickens—have perished in such fires.