AMARILLO, Texas: The Texas A&M Forest Service reported that a wildfire, raging northeast of Amarillo since the beginning of the week, has burned 850,000 acres (344,000 hectares) of grasslands and timber, and spread eastward across the Oklahoma border.
Local media reported an 83-year-old woman in Hutchinson County to have died in the fire, dubbed the Smokehouse Creek fire. Firefighters said they have managed to dig containment lines around just three percent of the blaze as of the night of February 28.
Fed by fierce winds and hot, dry conditions, several smaller wildfires were burning in other parts of the state’s northern Panhandle.
The area scorched by the Smokehouse Creek Fire was nearly as widespread as the largest wildfire on record in Texas, the East Amarillo Complex Fire in 2006 that burned 907,000 acres.
The Forest Service said the number of damaged and destroyed structures was still unknown.
The second largest Texas blaze was the Windy Deuce Fire, which had burned 142,000 acres and was 30 percent contained.
A day earlier, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to deploy more than 95 firefighters.
He also ordered personnel to close roads, control traffic, offer medical aid, and provide livestock support.
During a news briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and US Forest Service are helping Texas, and federal authorities are communicating with officials “on the front lines of these fires.”
According to data from PowerOutage.us, more than 13,000 Texas homes and businesses were without power, with more than 4,000 of those in the Panhandle region alone.
