Crews reining in Texas blazes
POSSUM KINGDOM LAKE, Texas – A once-picturesque lakeside community will take years to recover since a massive wildfire blackened grassy fields and turned upscale resort homes into ash heaps, a Texas sheriff said Thursday.
Firefighters made more progress in containing the blaze that’s charred nearly 150 square miles in three North Texas counties, but it’s unclear when residents will be allowed to return to the Possum Kingdom Lake area, Palo Pinto County Sheriff Ira Mercer said. Since starting a week ago in the lakeside area about 70 miles west of Fort Worth, the fire has destroyed about 160 of the community’s 3,000 homes – mostly people who lived there on weekends or in the summer.
“It will be years before this is back to what it used to be,” Mercer said Thursday, standing near a blackened field where the smell of smoke was thick and wind gusts blew ashes in the air.
The blaze is one of several burning in the drought-stricken state, including two massive wildfires in West Texas. Since Jan. 1, wildfires in Texas have scorched more than 1.4 million acres and led to the deaths of two firefighters.
On Thursday, fire crews under a light drizzle continued dousing smoldering heaps and chopping down trees to prevent small fires from spreading in the still-burning trunks. The fire in three counties was about 25 percent contained, fire officials said.
Ted Ryan, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said that while a storm system didn’t bring significant rain to the fire area in North Texas, it brought cooler temperatures and high humidity that helped firefighters – improved weather conditions expected to remain through the weekend.
Gov. Rick Perry has proclaimed a three-day period, from today to Sunday, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the state.
But the hot, windy conditions dreaded by fire officials were expected to return Monday, said David Boyd, a spokesman for the federal incident management team coordinating the Possum Kingdom Lake area blaze.
Meanwhile, firefighters in West Texas made progress on two massive fires – a 160,000-acre blaze in Coke County near San Angelo and a 200,000-acre fire burning for two weeks in Jeff Davis County – and both are now 75 percent contained, fire officials said Thursday.