Oklahoma City – Grass fires raged across the dry southern prairie Sunday, burning homes in Oklahoma City, destroying two small towns in Texas and creating patchworks of flames as burning embers were blown by winds gusting up to 50 mph.
At least a dozen wildfires were burning across Oklahoma. In Texas, more than 20 fires sprang up, including a 22,400- acre blaze threatening 200 homes near Carbon, about 125 miles west of Dallas.
Crews flying over the Texas communities of Ringgold, a town of about 100 people near Wichita Falls, and tiny Kokomo, near Eastland, reported both had essentially been wiped out by flames, officials said.
In New Mexico, just across the Texas line, two dozen elderly residents were moved out of a nursing home in Hobbs, and a casino, community college and several neighborhoods were evacuated in the town of 29,000 as firefighters battled spreading grass fires at the edge of the town.
Over the past week, sporadic blazes set off by arcing power lines, fireworks and other sparks igniting the dry landscape had already ravaged more than 50,000 acres, destroyed nearly 100 homes and killed four people in Texas and Oklahoma.
On Sunday, officials warned the extreme fire danger would continue into the new week while the dry, warm and gusty conditions were expected to continue.
Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry urged people to avoid any kind of open flame, even so much as throwing a cigarette butt out a car window.
“We will overcome this challenge,” Henry assured residents in a televised news conference Sunday night as firefighters battled lines of flames snaking across parts of Oklahoma City.
He said he had urged President Bush on Sunday to quickly approve a federal disaster declaration.
The droughtlike conditions have pushed the fire danger to critical levels across Oklahoma and Texas.
A fire near Wainwright in Muskogee County, Okla., charred several thousand acres and was at least a mile wide, but no injuries or structure fires were reported, said Bill Beebe, an information officer at a statewide command center in Shawnee.
In Carbon, Texas, at least three homes and several barns were destroyed Sunday afternoon and area residents were evacuated as the blaze spread, said Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Traci Weaver.
Helicopters with the Texas Air National Guard assisted firefighters as billowing clouds of smoke hung across the horizon for miles.
