LUBBOCK, Texas — A Forest Service official says wildfire conditions in much of Texas are comparable to those of March 2006, when a week of blazes killed a dozen people and thousands of livestock in the Panhandle.
Texas Forest Service operations director Mark Stanford said Monday that the extreme drought, low humidity and strong winds affecting much of Texas are akin to conditions then.
No one has died in wildfires that have burned about 1,400 square miles of land in Texas this year. But weekend blazes in West Texas destroyed more than 60 homes in two communities, and crews are trying to contain other fires in the state.
Powerful winds that sent walls of flame through parched ranchland in and around Fort Davis and Midland changed course Monday, directing the fires to largely unpopulated open spaces north and east of the cities.
An overnight thunderstorm — a rare occurrence of late — gave crews the break they needed to begin containing a wildfire that had scorched about 110 square miles of prairie about 175 miles west of Fort Worth.
