Why the Texas wildfire spread so quickly, becoming the state's second-largest ever

The Texas Panhandle and Northern Plains are currently experiencing a massive wildfire, and it is spreading rapidly. This raging inferno, fuelled by hot and windy weather, has wreaked havoc, destroying nearly 900,000 acres to date, and forcing people to leave their homes. Furthermore, roads are closed, and the nuclear weapon facility has also had to shut down.

Governor Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties as the blaze forces widespread evacuations. On Wednesday, the Texas A&M Forest Service said the fire had grown to rival the largest in state history.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire , which is only partially contained and covers 850,000 acres north of Stinnett, is the second-largest fire in Texas history. On Wednesday, the fire was much larger, stretching from 300,000 acres to what it is now, with unbearable heat and temperatures reaching nearly 126 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius).

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While the cause of the fire is unknown, the firefighters made some progress thanks to the cooler and less windy conditions.

But how did the Texas Panhandle fires spread so quickly? Here is a closer look.

How did the fires become so fierce?

Very high winds and very dry conditions Monday provided “the perfect set up” for the fires, said Samuel Scoleri, a forecaster at the National Weather Service Amarillo office. Some areas in the Panhandle recorded winds upwards of 60 miles per hour (100 kilometres per hour), with even stronger gusts. There is usually a lot of wind in the area, and it has been intensely dry with relative humidity at 20 per cent or even lower in some places.

“We just had very windy conditions on top of very, very dry situations,” Scoleri said.

The Texas blaze is representative of a growing trend of wildfires intensifying and moving faster than ever.

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Has this region seen fires grow so quickly before?

The largest of the latest Texas fires — the Smokehouse Creek Fire — grew Wednesday from about 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometres) to more than 1,300 square miles (about 3,400 square kilometres), the Texas A&M Forest Service said.

The speed at which the fires are spreading is “definitely not standard,” said Melissa Toole, administrative associate at Texas A&M Forest Service.

Flames the height of a one-story building can burn the length of a football field in one minute, said Leighton Chachere Gibson, a communications specialist at Texas A&M Forest Service.

The East Amarillo Complex Fire in 2006 burned over 900,000 acres (3,600 square kilometres) in the same general location.

Is it early in the season for this kind of fire activity?

Wildfire outbreaks are common in the region at this time of year, Gibson said.

Scoleri said dry winters are fairly standard in the area, but that temperatures were unseasonably high on Tuesday — in the 70s rather than the 50s and 60s as is more common.

“It kind of just feels out of the ordinary, considering at the top of the month we had places get almost half a foot of snow down south,” he said.

Will the forecast help or hinder firefighting?

Wednesday is the day to wrangle these fires. Winds are forecast to be light — under 10 mph (16 kph) — until the late evening. On Thursday, some help could come in the form of light rain in the morning.

But Scoleri warned of a “deja-vu weather pattern,” with strong winds returning over the weekend, although likely not as intense as on Monday on Tuesday.

Are the Texas wildfires contained or controlled?

The Texas A&M Forest Service said the Smokehouse Creek Fire was about three per cent contained as of early Wednesday afternoon.

When a fire is contained, it is surrounded by a fuel break, which is an area that contains no burnable substances — usually a dirt trench that has been dug using heavy equipment such as bulldozers.

Containment is a measure of that barrier as well as officials’ confidence that fire won’t cross the line when winds pick up.

A fire is controlled when any incendiary threats to containment lines have been mitigated. The barrier stops the fire’s progress and prevents it from reaching homes or properties outside the containment line.

A wildfire is declared out when there is no smoke or fire activity.

With inputs from AP