Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
More than a million acres have been burned by wildfires in the Texas Panhandle this week.
Multiple wildfires scorching the Texas Panhandle had merged as of Thursday morning, creating the largest wildfire in state history at more than one million acres burned.
The forest service said the largest of the fires, the Smokehouse Creek fire in Hutchinson County, was an estimated 1,075,000 acres and 3% contained as of 9 a.m. Thursday. The 687 Reamer fire, which stood Thursday at roughly 2,000 acres, burned into the Smokehouse Creek fire, the service said.
According to historical data, it has exceeded the previous record for the state's largest wildfire. The previous largest, the East Amarillo Complex fire, burned about 907,000 acres in March 2006.
KFDA-TV in Amarillo reported at least two people have died in the fires, one in Stinnett, Texas, another in Pampa, Texas.
Dozens of homes have been burned, including about 40 outside Canadian, Texas.
Snow blanketed much of the region on Thursday, but the fire was only 3% contained, "untamed and threatening," The Associated Press reported.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to deploy additional state emergency resources, just one day after he issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties. The forest service also raised wildland fire preparedness to level 3, expecting wildfire activity will increase over the next several days.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told The Dallas Morning News the fire had killed up to "tens of thousands of head of cattle" and closed at least 13 school districts.
"It's really bad," he said. "It's going to get worse."
