2 of 3 Panhandle wildfires now completely contained

Officials said Thursday that two of the three fires that have burned the Texas Panhandle this week now are fully contained and firefighters continue to tamp down the largest of the three.

The Texas A&M Forest Service says a fire in the northeast corner of the Panhandle near the Oklahoma border has burned nearly 500 square miles and was 75 percent contained Thursday afternoon.

A separate fire just to the south was fully contained after burning about 210 square miles.

Another, smaller fire to the west, near Amarillo, was fully contained by firefighters Tuesday.

Four people have died in the Texas fires while a fifth person was killed in Oklahoma and another person died in Kansas. Three of the people killed in Texas were trying to usher cattle away from the flames when they were overcome.

Texas agriculture officials are scrambling to secure feed and other supplies for approximately 10,000 cattle and horses that have fled from the wildfires.

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension said in a statement that about 4,200 large round bales of hay are needed to feed displaced animals over the next two weeks.

Texas Cattle Feeders Association spokeswoman Jayce Winters said that preliminary counts indicate about 1,500 cattle were killed in the fires, but a more precise accounting could be days or weeks away.