AMARILLO, Texas — Central Texas is one of many places across the state sending first responders to help put out wildfires in the Panhandle.
Early Wednesday morning, fires began spreading across the Panhandle. The largest fire, designated the Smokehouse Creek fire, has covered more than 500,000 acres in Hutchinson County and parts of western Oklahoma.
As of around 2 p.m. Wednesday, that fire is 3% contained. Residents in more than 60 counties have been urged to evacuate their homes after Gov. Greg Abbott announced a disaster declaration.
On Tuesday, the Pflugerville Fire Department posted to Facebook, saying firefighters with Travis County Emergency Services District No. 2 were heading to the Panhandle to help put out the fires. The firefighters will serve as part of the Brush Truck Strike Team, along with crews from the Killeen Fire Department, Kyle Fire Department/Hays County ESD No. 5, Travis County EDS No. 1, Temple Fire & Rescue and the Moffett Fire Department.
On Thursday, Austin-Travis County EMS (ATCEMS) posted on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, to say that the Capital Area of Texas Regional Advisory Council (CTRAC) sent one of its trucks to help with the fire and CTRAC, ATCEMS and Hamilton County EMS assets and crews left to help overnight, only to be met with snow-covered vehicles Thursday morning.
The majority of the six active fires are spreading near the Amarillo area, including in Hutchinson, Moore, Upshur, Oldham and Gray counties.
The second largest fire is called Windy Deuce and is currently active across 40,000 acres in Moore County. That fire was 20% contained as of around 10:30 a.m.
As the fires continued to spread, Amarillo-based nuclear power plant Pantex has evacuated most employees and paused its operations for the time being.
The cause of the fires is currently unknown.
A live tracker of the fires is available on the Texas A&M Forest Service Incident Viewer.