Sixty separate wildfires, raging on thanks to high winds from Tropical Storm Lee, are burning across Texas at this hour, destroying homes and killing at least two people so far.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is cutting short his presidential campaigning and returning from South Carolina to Texas today.
“I urge Texans to take extreme caution as we continue to see the devastating effects of sweeping wildfires impacting both rural and urban areas of the state,” Perry said in a statement.
Perry had been scheduled to take part in a televised discussion with other Republican presidential candidates tonight.
Officials now say that the worst of the fires are east of Austin, Texas, where the Bastrop County Complex fire stretches for 16 miles.
According to the Texas Forest Service, that fire has crossed Highway 95 and has spread to 25,000 acres. Yesterday, the Service responded to 63 new fires burning on more than 32,000 acres.
Authorities in Gregg County say a fire there killed a 20-year-old woman and her 18-month-old daughter, who had become trapped in their mobile home.
“We have about 16 miles long at this time and about six miles wide,” said Bastrop County Fire Chief Ronnie McDonald.
“The Circle D, K.C. Estates, Pine Forest, Colovista and Tahitian Village subdivision have been evacuated,” the Texas Forest Service said today.
The service estimates some 424 homes have been destroyed so far from ongoing fires, 300 from the Bastrop fire alone.
More in the video below.
Related articles
- Fierce Texas wildfire destroys 300 homes (cnn.com)
- Two dead, hundreds of homes burned in Texas wildfires – Reuters (news.google.com)
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