PARADISE, Kansas — This time of year, rancher Rich Koester is normally busy caring for newborn calves or feeding his herd to get them ready for winter.
Instead, he’s busy burying livestock.
As he walked up to the edge of a freshly dug pit roughly the size of a backyard swimming pool, the charred stubble of prairie grass crunched beneath his feet.
Days after the wildfire that torched his pasture went out, the smell of smoke still hung in the air.