Texas braces for strong winds as fires continue

Firefighters weary from three days of battling blazes that have ravaged 840,000 acres and killed 11 people in the US state of Texas, braced for the threat of strong winds to return.

Winds from the south were expected to pick up today with gusts of up to 40mph, forecasters said.

“We’re preparing for the worst,” Fire Chief Clifford McDonald said. “The winds and all the burning embers we got, it could be bad.”

The state responded to more than 200 fires covering 191,000 acres in a 24-hour period that ended midday yesterday.

Those blazes destroyed 15 homes, closed at least one highway and forced the evacuation of 45 people, officials said.

Since last weekend, 1,900 others in seven counties already had been forced to evacuate.

About 10,000 cattle and horses were feared dead across the smoking landscape, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission.

Some volunteer firefighters have had as little as three hours sleep in the past few days.

More than 350 firefighters have fought the blazes, with 26 aircraft dropping fire retardant, and 55 bulldozer crews clearing brush and digging trenches.

Governor Rick Perry plans to tour the devastated areas tomorrow.

The charred bodies of four oilfield workers were found within 50 yards of their car, said Newell Rankin, the range foreman of the Roberts County ranch where the bodies were found.

Rankin said it appeared the men drove off a gravel road on Sunday and into a ravine, where they abandoned the car and tried to flee.

“In a last act of desperation you just run for your life, literally,” he said. “It’s a shocking thing, the loss of life.”

Rankin said most of his 1,300-acre ranch was burned, and he was trying to account for his 750 head of cattle. He found 12 dead and had to shoot another.

About 500 were back in their pens, and firefighters managed to save his home, Rankin said.

On Sunday, four people died in a crash on a smoke-shrouded highway near Groom, and three more died after fires near Borger trapped them in homes.

Nine firefighters have been injured, including three volunteer firefighters who were hurt in a vehicle rollover.

Two are in the intensive care unit and another is in stable condition, said Daniel Hawthorne, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety.

While forecasters were watching the possibility for strong winds, higher humidity was expected to mean the fire danger would “not be as explosive as it was on Sunday,” said John Cockrell of the National Weather Service in Amarillo.

A slight chance of rain was forecast for the weekend.

Fires have consumed about 3.7 million acres and nearly 400 homes in Texas since December 26, state officials said.