BASTROP, Texas — A roaring wildfire raced unchecked Monday through rain-starved farm and ranchland in Central Texas, destroying nearly 500 homes during a rapid advance fanned in part by howling winds from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee.
At least 5,000 people were forced from their homes in Bastrop County about 25 miles east of Austin, many of them fearing the worst while spending the night in emergency shelters. Huge clouds of smoke soared into the sky and hung over downtown Bastrop, a town of about 6,000 people along the Colorado River.
The blaze consumed as much as 25,000 acres along a line that stretched for about 16 miles, Texas Forest Service officials said.
It destroyed 476 homes. About 250 firefighters were working around the clock, using bulldozers and pumper trucks against the fire, said Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald.
Mike Fischer, the county emergency management director, said the fire was “nowhere near controlled,” and that a separate, smaller blaze south of the city was growing larger.
“I wasn’t going to evacuate, but then the smoke got blacker and blacker and it was like: ‘OK, time to go,’ ” said Gina Thurman, 47, an analyst for the Texas Workforce Commission.
“Waiting is the most frustrating thing,” she said, choking back tears as she sat by herself in the shade on a curb outside Ascension Catholic Church, one of several shelter sites. “You’re sitting there, and you don’t know anything, but your house is probably burning.”
The new outbreak led Gov. Rick Perry to return home to Texas, cutting short a visit to South Carolina where he was campaigning for the Republican nomination for president. He also canceled a trip to California.
“The wildfire situation in Texas is severe, and all necessary state resources are being made available to protect lives and property,” Perry said.
Authorities mobilized ground and air forces to fight the largest of at least 63 fires that broke out in Texas since Sunday as high winds from what was then Tropical Storm Lee swept into Texas, which has endured its worst drought since the 1950s.
“It’s still putting up a lot of smoke, and it’s scary,” said Jan Amen, a Texas Forest Service spokeswoman.
School and school-related activities were canceled for today.
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
On Sunday, however, about 200 miles to the northeast in Gladewater, a 20-year-old woman and her 18-month-old daughter died when a fast-moving wildfire gutted their mobile home. That fire was out Monday, although several other major blazes continued to burn in at least four other counties in Central and North Texas.
At least two-thirds of the 6,000-acre Bastrop State Park, a popular getaway east of Bastrop, had been consumed, said Mike Cox of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. All nonessential workers had been ordered out of the park.
“All I see is a wall of smoke,” Cox said from the park’s front gate. It was not immediately certain how the Bastrop blaze began, but it appeared that two fires merged to form a “monster” fire, Amen said.
To the west of Austin in Travis County, at least 20 homes were lost and 30 others were damaged in another fire. More than 1,000 homes were under mandatory evacuation and 25 lost in a third fire also in the Austin area.
Since the beginning of the wildfire season, local and state firefighters have responded to more than 20,900 fires burning more than 3.6 million acres.
