©Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A drone view of grasslands burning from the Smokehouse Creek fire in Roberts County, Texas, U.S., February 28, 2024. REUTERS/Nathan Frandino/File Photo
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By Nathan Frandino, Rich McKay and Brendan O’Brien
CANADIAN, Texas (Reuters) – Fire crews battled on Thursday to contain a deadly wildfire that has burned more than 1 million acres (404,686 hectares) of prairie, timber and residential areas in Texas’ northern Panhandle, becoming thus the largest fire ever recorded in Texas. the history of the state.
According to the Texas A&M Forest Service, the fire, dubbed the Smokehouse Creek Fire, has doubled in size since Wednesday and was 3% contained as of Thursday morning. Firefighters used a brief respite in strong winds that swept through the area to erect barriers and tackle hot spots of downed trees and thick grass.
On Thursday, Jason Wilhelm, 36, was using a front-end loader to clear land in Canadian, a small town about 100 miles (161 km) northeast of Amarillo, where the home he shared with his father had been located a few days earlier. wife and five children. . Charred grass and blackened trees were all that remained.
His wife managed to gather photos, cash and some sentimental items from the house before the fire broke out on Monday. “It was heartbreaking,” Wilhelm said.
Rain and snow that fell in the area Thursday offered an “injection of moisture” before the air dries out Friday and strong winds return over the weekend, said Steve Hannah, an Amarillo meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Gusts could reach 40 mph by Sunday, he said.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire has now burned an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
The number of structures destroyed and people evacuated is not yet clear, but dozens of homes would have been razed to the ground. According to Texas A&M, the fire has killed one person so far. The victim was described by local media as an 83-year-old woman from Hutchinson County, northeast of Amarillo.
Lee Haygood, 57, a ranch owner about 25 miles southeast of Canada who managed to save all his cattle, was counting his blessings Thursday but also wondering how he would feed them.
“We haven’t lost any livestock, but we’ve lost 75 percent of our pastures,” he said. “It will take a full growing season to come back, maybe not until the fall.”
Unlike ranchers in northern Canada, Haygood received only a few hours’ notice Monday that the fire was approaching. He moved his herd of 200 Hereford bulls from the four square miles of pasture and corralled them into the single green cornfield he had left, hoping it wouldn’t catch fire.
Some ranchers have already started sending semi-trailers full of hay and flour to his ranch. “We’re really lucky,” he told her.
Several smaller fires were burning elsewhere in the Panhandle region. The second largest fire in the area, the Windy Deuce, burned 142,000 acres and was 30% contained Thursday, according to Texas A&M.
On Tuesday, the Windy Deuce had crept within a few miles of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pantex plant, the nation’s main nuclear weapons assembly plant, located near Amarillo, prompting officials to evacuate nonessential personnel and suspend operations.
But on Wednesday the leading edge of the fire moved north and west, away from Pantex, allowing routine activities at the plant to resume.
“Operations at the Pantex plant returned to normal on Wednesday,” the facility said in an online notice. “There is currently no imminent fire threat to the facility.”