STINNETT, Texas (AP) — Danny Phillips was left helpless when the largest wildfire in Texas history engulfed his town.
“We had to watch our neighborhood burn from miles away,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion.
In his hard-hit town of Stinnett, a town of about 1,600 people, families like his who evacuated from the Smokehouse Creek fire returned Thursday to find melted road signs and charred car and truck frames. A devastating scene was seen. Houses were reduced to piles of ash and rubble. An American flag stands outside a destroyed home.
Although Phillips' one-story house still stood, some of his neighbors were not so lucky.
The Stinnett burn comes despite Thursday's snowfall that helped firefighters, who are still working hard to contain the blaze ahead of warmer temperatures and winds predicted for the next few days. It reminded me of what I was working on.
In the Texas Panhandle, the Smokehouse Creek Fire has already killed two people and left a desolate landscape of scorched grasslands, dead cattle and burnt-out homes.
Friday's fire was about the same size, just under 1,700 square miles (4,400 square kilometers). Combined with another fire, the fire is now 5% contained, up from 3% on Thursday. According to the Texas A&M Forest Service.The largest of several large fires that occurred in rural panhandle areas of the statealso expanded into Oklahoma.
The Forest Service said crews will focus on the northern edge of the fire and areas surrounding structures.
A gray sky loomed over a huge scar in the blackened earth. rural area It is dotted with scrub, ranches, rocky canyons, and oil rigs. Firefighter Lee Jones was working in Stinnett to help extinguish the remains of a smoldering home and prevent a flare-up as the weather began to change on Friday and continued into the weekend.
“Snow helps,” said Jones, one of about a dozen firefighters from Lubbock called in to help. “We're hitting all the hot spots around town, all the houses that are already on fire.”
Officials have not said what caused the fire, but strong winds, dry grass, unseasonably warm weather fed them.
“The rain and snow is a boon right now, and we're using it to our advantage,” Texas A&M Forest Service spokesman Juan Rodriguez said of the Smokehouse Creek Fire. “If the fire is not exploding and moving quickly, firefighters can actually catch up and get to that part of the fire.”
The previous largest fire in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex Fire, which burned approximately 1,400 square miles (3,630 square kilometers) and killed 13 people.
Only two women have been confirmed dead so far this week. But authorities had not yet conducted a thorough search for victims or tallied homes and other structures that were damaged or destroyed, as the fires still posed a widespread threat.
Sergeant Cindy Owen said she was driving in Hemphill County, Texas, south of Canada, on Tuesday afternoon when she encountered fire and smoke. Chris Ray of the state Department of Public Safety said. When she got out of the truck, flames attacked her.
A passerby spotted Owen and called paramedics, who took her to a burn unit in Oklahoma. She died Thursday morning, Ray said.
The other victim was an 83-year-old woman identified by her family as Joyce Blankenship, a former substitute teacher. Her grandson, Lee Quesada, said Wednesday that officers told his uncle that they had found Blankenship's body in her burnt-out home.
President Joe Biden was visiting Texas on Thursday. border between us and mexico, said it had directed federal authorities to do “everything possible” to assist communities affected by the fires, including sending firefighters and equipment. The president said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has guaranteed that Texas and Oklahoma will be reimbursed for emergency costs.
“When disaster strikes, there are no red states or blue states where I come from,” Biden said. “The only people asking for help are communities and families. So we stand with everyone affected by these wildfires and will continue to support their response and recovery.”
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and was scheduled to visit the Panhandle on Friday.
Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said the weekend forecast and the “scale and scope” of the fire were the biggest challenges for firefighters.
“We don't want to give people in this area a false sense of security that the fire won't spread any further,” Kidd said. “This remains a very dynamic situation.”
Stinnett resident Jeremiah Caslon, who watched his neighbor's home destroyed by flames that stopped right at the edge of his property, seemed prepared for what the change in the forecast would bring. Ta.
“The weather around here changes all four seasons in a week,” Caslon said. “It's hot, hot and windy, and it will snow the next day. It's just the time of the year.''
The main facility was destroyed by the invading flames. dismantle America's nuclear weapons Operations were temporarily suspended on Tuesday night, but normal operations resumed by Wednesday. small town of FritschHundreds of homes were lost in the 2014 fire, and 40 to 50 more were destroyed this week, Mayor Tom Ray said.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller estimated the number of cattle deaths was in the thousands, with many more likely to die.
“There will be some cows that will have to be euthanized,” Miller said. “His hooves and udders would have been burned.”
Miller said individual ranchers could suffer devastating losses. But he predicted the overall impact on Texas' cattle industry and beef consumer prices would be minimal.
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Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writers Ty O'Neal in Stinnett, Texas, Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Jeremiah Caslon's last name from “Carson” in one reference.
