A series of wildfires broke out in the Texas Panhandle early Wednesday morning as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fueled the blazes, prompting evacuations, cutting power to thousands and shutting down nuclear weapons facilities. was forced to.
An unknown number of homes and other structures were damaged or destroyed in Hutchinson County, local emergency officials said.
A major facility for assembling and dismantling America’s nuclear weapons ceased operations Tuesday night.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we evacuated personnel and non-essential personnel from the site,” Raev Pendergraft, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Production Office, said at a news conference. Ta.
“However, we have a fully equipped fire department that is trained for these scenarios and is on-site monitoring and preparing in case an actual emergency occurs on the plant property.”
Pantex is located approximately 27 miles northeast of Amarillo and approximately 520 miles northwest of Dallas. Since 1975, it has been the primary assembly and disassembly site for U.S. atomic bombs.
In 1991, while dismantling thousands of bombs, he assembled the last new type of bomb.
The largest fire, the Smokehouse Creek Fire, has burned nearly 400 square miles, prompting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to declare disaster for 60 counties, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. This is more than doubling in size since the fire broke out on Monday.
Officials have not said what caused the fire, which ravaged the sparsely populated county surrounded by rolling plains.
“Texans are being asked to limit activities that could create sparks and take precautions to keep their loved ones safe,” Abbott said.
The weather forecast gave firefighters some hope. Thursday was expected to be cooler, with less wind and a chance of rain. But at this time, the situation was dire in some areas.
In Borger, a community of about 13,000 people about 40 miles north of Pantex, Hutchinson County emergency management services personnel are evacuations ahead of expected power outages and overnight temperatures in the 20s. A convoy was planned to transport people from one evacuation center to another.
Amid evacuation orders, county and city officials went live on Facebook and attempted to answer questions from panicked residents.
Officials urged people to turn on emergency alerts on their cellphones and be ready to evacuate immediately. They explained that some roads were on fire on both sides and said resources were being stretched to their limits.
People posted about their streets and communities in Facebook chats in hopes of good news, but often the answer was whether the area was damaged or what the area looked like. It was either not shown or not.
Texas Sen. Kevin Sparks said an evacuation order had been issued for Canadian, a town of about 2,000 people about 160 miles northeast of Amarillo. Late Tuesday, the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office called on those remaining in Canada to shelter in place or at high school gymnasiums as roads were closed.
Evacuation orders were also issued in nearby Miami, and schools in Canada and Miami announced closures on Wednesday. Fire officials across the border in the Durham, Oklahoma, region of eastern Canada also urged people to evacuate due to the blaze.
Evacuations are also in effect in Skellytown, Wheeler, Allison and Brisco, according to the National Weather Service in Amarillo.
Officials in the city of Pampa, about 40 miles southwest of Canada, suggested on Facebook that residents evacuate south and said buses were also available.
Officials said Pampa residents may be able to return home as crews continued to extinguish the fire Tuesday night.
“We were able to stop the fire north of town,” a Bureau of Meteorology official said on X (formerly Twitter).
To the west, at least some residents of the small Hutchinson County city of Fritch were told to leave their homes Tuesday afternoon because of another fire that jumped a highway.
“All residents south of Highway 146 in Fritch evacuate now!” city officials said on Facebook.
The fire started 32 to 40 miles away from Amarillo on Tuesday night, and winds were blowing wildfire smoke into the city, potentially affecting people with respiratory problems. A weather bureau official said.
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for several other states across the central region of the country as strong winds of more than 40 miles per hour, warm temperatures, low humidity and dry winter vegetation combine to create conditions for wildfires. and issued a fire hazard warning.
A grassland fire started by a lawnmower in central Nebraska has scorched a vast prairie roughly the size of the state’s largest city, Omaha, state officials said Tuesday.
