Wildfire grows into one of Texas’ largest as flames menace multiple small towns
CANADIAN, Texas — A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches.
At least one person has died in fast-spreading wildfires. However, authorities have yet to make a thorough search for victims and warned that the damage to some communities is extensive.
Known as the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest blaze spread to more than 3,370 square kilometers and jumped into parts of neighboring Oklahoma. It is now larger than the state of Rhode Island, and the Texas A&M Forest Service said the flames were only about 3 percent contained.
“I believe the fire will grow before it gets fully contained,” Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said.
The largest fire recorded in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex Fire, which burned about 3,600 square kilometers and resulted in 13 deaths.
Walls of flames were pushed by powerful winds, while huge plumes of smoke billowed hundreds of feet in the air across the sparsely populated region. The smoke delayed aerial surveillance of the damage in some areas.
“There was one point where we couldn’t see anything,” said Greg Downey, 57. “I didn’t think we’d get out of it.”
North of Amarillo, the small town of Fritch lost hundreds of homes in a 2014 fire and appeared to be hit hard again. Fritch Mayor Tom Ray said on Wednesday that an estimated 40 to 50 homes were destroyed on the southern edge. Ray said natural gas remained shut off for the town of 2,200.
Residents are probably not “prepared for what they’re going to see if they pull into town”, Hutchinson County Emergency Management spokesperson Deidra Thomas said in a social media livestream. She compared the damage to a tornado.
Authorities have not said what started the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes. Near Borger, a community of about 13,000 people, emergency officials answered questions from panicked residents on Facebook late on Tuesday and at one point told them to get ready to leave if they had not already.
Disaster declaration
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties.
The encroaching flames caused the main facility that disassembles the United States’ nuclear arsenal to pause operations on Tuesday.
Pantex Plant, located about 30 kilometers east of Texas Panhandle’s largest city Amarillo, assembles and disassembles the country’s nuclear arsenal.
All weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected, according to a statement from Consolidated Nuclear Security, which runs Pantex together with the US National Nuclear Security Administration.
It was open for normal work on Wednesday.
The Pantex nuclear weapon plant evacuated nonessential staff members on Tuesday night out of an “abundance of caution”, said Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s production office at Pantex. Firefighters remained in case of an emergency.
Pantex tweeted early on Wednesday that the facility was “open for normal day shift operations”.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire spread from Texas into neighboring Roger Mills County in western Oklahoma, where officials encouraged people in the Durham area to flee. At least 13 homes burned in fires in the state’s Panhandle region, officials said on Wednesday.
The weather forecast provided some hope for firefighters — cooler temperatures, less wind and possibly rain on Thursday. However, the situation was dire in some areas on Wednesday.