Two killed in historic blaze as up to 500 structures destroyed in Texas Wildfire

Guardian staff and agencies

March 1, 2024

Higher temperatures and winds forecast in the coming days could make firefighting conditions more difficult

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 neighborhood 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 – the most destructive blaze in the state’s history – returned on 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’s one-story home was still standing, but several of his neighbors weren’t so fortunate.

Stinnett’s destruction was a reminder that, even as snow fell on 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 burned-out homes in the Texas Panhandle.

According to Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, up to 500 structures may have been destroyed, and damage assessments are under way.

“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.

The blaze stayed about the same size on Friday, just shy of 1,700 sq miles (4,400 sq km). It merged with another fire and is now 15% contained, up from 3% on Thursday, according to the Texas A&M forest service.

To read the full article, click here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/01/texas-wildfire-two-killed