A residence still smolders on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Canadian, Texas. A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches.
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, the fire exceeded the previous record for the state’s largest wildfire. The now second-largest, the East Amarillo Complex fire, burned about 907,000 acres in March 2006.
The forest service also raised wildland fire preparedness to level 3, expecting wildfire activity will increase over the next several days.the fires had already killed up to “tens of thousands of head of cattle” and closed at least 13 school districts.Crews from across the state have traveled to the Panhandle to help contain the fires, including 15 firefighters with the Fort Worth Fire Department, who said they could stay as long as two weeks.
As snow flurries fell outside Thursday morning, lightly coating roofs and grass, an American Red Cross representative visited the church.”We’re doing what we can,” he replied. Courtney Kirksey, a pastor at the church alongside her husband Dwight, said the church served a similar purpose after fires devastated the town in 2014. Kirksey said she’s happy it’s a place where people feel safe.AT&T and FirstNet will spend $8 billion on first responder network, Breaking News Reporter. Lana Ferguson joined The Dallas Morning News after reporting in South Carolina's Lowcountry for The Island Packet & Beaufort Gazette newspapers.
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