A Texas town watched helplessly as the largest wildfire in state history engulfed it
At least 2 dead, high winds in forecast
• As the largest wildfire in Texas history engulfed his town, Danny Phillips was left helpless. “We had to watch from a few miles away as our neighbourhood burned,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion.
In his hard-hit town of Stinnett, population roughly 1,600, families like his who evacuated from the Smokehouse Creek fire returned Thursday to devastating scenes: melted street signs and charred frames of cars and trucks. Homes reduced to piles of ash and rubble. An American flag propped up outside a destroyed house.
Phillips’ one-storey home was still standing, but several of his neighbours weren’t so fortunate.
Stinnett’s destruction was a reminder that, even as snow fell Thursday and helped firefighters, crews are racing to stamp out the blaze ahead of higher temperatures and winds forecast in the coming days.
Already, the Smokehouse Creek fire has killed two people and left behind a desolate landscape of scorched prairie, dead cattle and burnt-out homes in the rural Texas Panhandle. The largest of several major fires burning in the area, it has also crossed into Oklahoma.
The fire may have destroyed as many as 500 structures in the Texas Panhandle and that number could rise as damage assessments continue, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday.
The Smokehouse Creek fire, which started Monday, has burned about 4,400 square kilometres in Texas and killed two people. It has left behind a charred landscape of scorched prairie, dead cattle and burnt-out homes in the Texas Panhandle. It merged with another fire and is five per cent contained, up from three per cent on Thursday, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
“When you look at the damages that have occurred here it’s just gone, completely gone, nothing left but ashes on the ground,” Abbott said at a news conference in Borger, Texas.
At the X-cross-x Ranch near Skellytown, ranch hands scooped up the bloated carcasses of dead cattle using bulldozers and deposited them on a pile beside a dirt road. They were then loaded into the back of an open trailer.
Ranch operator Chance Bowers said he expects to lose about a quarter of the 1,000 cows on three ranches, either to burns or smoke inhalation. He said they were in the middle of the calving season and “we’re not finding many calves, so that’s going to be pretty detrimental.”
“As you can see behind us, we’re picking up deads today,” Bowers said. “We don’t have a total number, but by the time it’s all said and done, we’re going to have lost between 200 to 250 head, and that’s just cows.”
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller estimated the cattle deaths would be in the thousands, with more likely to come.
Miller said individual ranchers could suffer devastating losses. But he predicted the overall impact on the Texas cattle industry and on consumer prices for beef would be minimal.
Authorities have not said what ignited the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm weather fed them.
Firefighting crews were focused on the northern side of the fire, according to Texas A&M Forest Service spokesperson Juan Rodriguez.
“It’s all in anticipation of the weather ... we’re expected to receive this weekend, we’re trying to take advantage of the good weather right now” that included rain and snow on Thursday, Rodriguez said.
Conditions will worsen through the weekend in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico, according to the National Weather Service. Strong winds, relatively low humidity and dry conditions are creating conditions that the weather service warned caused “a significant threat for the rapid spread of wildfires.”
Firefighter Lee Jones was helping douse the smouldering wreckage of homes in Stinnett to keep them from reigniting when the weather starts turning Friday and continues into the weekend.
“We’re just hitting all the hot spots around town, the houses that have already burned,” Jones said.
Two women have been confirmed killed by the fires this week. But with flames still menacing a wide area, authorities haven’t yet thoroughly searched for victims.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who was in Texas on Thursday to visit the U.s.-mexico border, said he directed federal officials to do “everything possible” to assist fire-affected communities, including sending firefighters and equipment.