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- Wildfire in Texas, USA
Problems
Texas wildfires
A Texas panhandle fire has consumed nearly 900,000 acres, prompting widespread evacuations, road closures and emergency declarations. According to the Texas A&M Forest Service, the blaze is the second largest in Texas' history, since the state began recording the data in 2005. The largest fire burning is the Smokehouse Creek Fire north of Stinnett, with only 3% containment. Catastrophic wildfires ripping across 2024 the Texas Panhandle have killed at least two people and threaten to destroy more homes, cattle and livelihoods as the biggest inferno in state history engulfs more land every minute. The Smokehouse Creek fire is one of five large wildfires currently burning in the Texas Panhandle. The Smokehouse Creek Fire has now torched more than 1 million acres in Texas alone, making it the largest fire on record in the state. The blaze had also charred more than 31,500 acres in Oklahoma, the state’s forestry service said. The cause of fires is still unknown but dry, warmer-than-average conditions combined with high winds caused blazes that sparked to grow exponentially, prompting evacuations across a more than 100-mile (160-kilometer) stretch of small towns and cattle ranches from Fritch east into Oklahoma. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said the damage to the region could be "catastrophic." Miller said individual ranchers could suffer devastating losses. However, he predicted the overall impact on the Texas cattle industry and consumer beef prices would be minimal. “These fires not only threaten lives and property but will also have a significant impact on our agricultural industry,” Miller said. “More than 85% of the state’s cattle population is concentrated on ranches in the Panhandle. There are millions of head of cattle there, and in some cities, there are more cattle than people.”
Gallery
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Timelines
2025
March 15
As of 6:30 p.m. CST, 10 wildfires remained uncontained throughout north, east, central and south Texas, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service Incident Viewer. The Crabapple Fire, the wildfire near Fredericksburg in Gillespie County, has burned 8,640 acres and is 0% contained, as of 6:30 p.m. CST according to the Texas A&M Forest Service Incident Viewer. The fire with the largest footprint is the Windmill Fire in Roberts County, which is about 83 miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas. The fire had raged through more than 23,000 acres and was 65% contained, as of 6:30 p.m. CST according to the Texas A&M Forest Service Incident Viewer. To contain the Windmill Fire, a Texas A&M Forest Service Large Airtanker dropped bright red retardant over Roberts County afternoon. The Texas A&M Forest Service responded to 11 new wildfires that burned 9,115 acres, spanning from the Texas Panhandle to South Texas.
March 14
An outbreak of wildfires began in Texas as winds exceeded 30 miles per hour and dry land provided the ideal fuel.
2024
February 29
The inferno is one of three fires burning in the Texas Panhandle – with no end in sight. Despite light precipitation in the area Thursday, dry air and ferocious winds are expected to return Friday and into the weekend – likely fueling the flames. Joe Biden, who was in Texas on Thursday to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, said he had directed federal officials to do "everything possible" to help fire-ravaged communities, including sending firefighters and equipment. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has guaranteed that Texas and Oklahoma will be reimbursed for emergency expenses, the president said.
February 27
The advancing flames caused the main site dismantling America's nuclear arsenal to pause operations Tuesday night, but it was reopened for normal operations by Wednesday. In the small town of Fritsch, which lost hundreds of homes to fire in 2014, another 40 to 50 homes were destroyed this week, Mayor Tom Ray said.
2021
Wildfire risk is generally expected to increase across the state as climate change progresses because the landscape will be drier and there will be more vegetation to burn, according to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon's 2021 report on extreme weather. Those effects will still vary regionally, according to Nielsen-Gammon's findings. In the next two decades, the chance for wildfires may increase more slowly in the Panhandle and Far West Texas because there will be less plant matter to burn. But more areas of the state to the east may begin to suffer from wildfires as the plants there dry up in the heat. Nielsen-Gammon said that fire-prone communities need to be prepared no matter how much their risk increases.
2017
An outbreak across the Great Plains burned 480,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle and killed five people, including two young cowboys and a nurse who managed to save a ranch’s cattle but lost their own lives in the process. Many other ranches in the area lost either their livestock or the grass they depended on.
2015
Bastrop Country suffered from a large wildfire.
2014
The town’s Fritch, Texas northern edge was hit by a devastating wildfire. The town lost hundreds of homes in a fire.
2011
Before the Eastland fires, the disastrous 2011 fires in Bastrop County near Austin killed two people, destroyed more than 1,600 homes, and caused an estimated $325 million in insured property damages, according to the Insurance Council of Texas. The Bastrop fires burned through much of the Lost Pines, a unique ecosystem of loblolly pine trees that has adapted to a dry climate and grown farther west than any other loblollies in the country.
2006
The largest fire in the state's recorded history was the East Amarillo Complex Fire in 2006, which burned about 1,400 square miles (3,600 square kilometers) and killed 13 people.
1980
Began reliable record-keeping fires in the 1980s.