Texas Panhandle wildfires: What you need to know about the blazes, damage and recovery

Burned trees dot the landscape in Hemphill County on Sunday, March 3. The area was scorched by the Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest wildfire in Texas history. (Credit: Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune)

Smokehouse Creek fire, largest in state’s history, is 37% contained

March 5, 2024 at 9:17 p.m.

The largest wildfire in Texas history has burned nearly 1.1 million acres in the Panhandle, killing thousands of livestock, incinerating crops and destroying hundreds of structures along its path.

Firefighters are focusing their efforts on holding the line of the record-setting Smokehouse Creek fire in Hutchinson County.

As of Tuesday morning, firefighters had contained 37% of the fire — meaning they had secured that percentage of the area affected by the blaze to prevent further spread, according to Texas Forest Service officials. They also said firefighters have been able to more accurately map the fire and slightly reduced the total acreage still on fire by about 10,000 acres to just under 1.06 million acres.

The blaze was among six burning in the Panhandle as of Tuesday. In Sanford, the Roughneck fire forced the evacuation of the town, population 132, after starting on Sunday. According to the Forest Service incident website, that fire grew to 355 acres, but firefighters had contained 80% of it by Tuesday morning.

A new fire called the Gray fire also popped up outside the town of Groom, just south of the Grapevine Fire in Gray County, according to the Texas Forest Service. While that fire hasn’t been contained, it is much smaller than the others, covering an area of about 30 acres. Personnel have been dispatched to fight the blaze.

Authorities have confirmed two people died in connection to the wildfires. During a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott honored Fritch volunteer fire chief Zeb Smith, who died while fighting a structure fire that did not appear related to the wildfires.

"It is always a tragedy to lose any life. But to see that one of our chiefs, a first responder working to battle back against flames and losing his life in the line of duty, is something that we never want to see,” Abbott said. “That is what Texas heroism is all about.”

Fires have burned around 70% of Hemphill County and displaced 47 families, Abbott said. He said a local hospital had to move 66 people to the town of Pampa, and then move them again. The governor emphasized the need for donations, especially hay to feed cattle, fencing materials and cattle cubes. He said the state hopes to apply for additional federal funding to help with the recovery. In a press release, Abbott called on people affected by the fires to complete a voluntary survey that the governor’s office said will help understand the extent of the damages.

Abbott said weather changes throughout the week could pose a threat to the community and recommended everyone “maintain vigilance to make sure that nobody else loses their life.” Abbott on Monday said that the risk of new wildfires will remain in the Panhandle and South Texas “until spring green-up occurs in the abundance of grass vegetation found in these regions.”

National Weather Service meteorologists in Amarillo said neither elevated nor critical fire weather conditions were expected in the region Tuesday. Meteorologists said Tuesday morning parts of the Panhandle might see rain and snow later in the week.

In its most recent update, Forest Service officials said Monday that firefighting conditions had strengthened since Sunday due to improved weather conditions brought by an arriving cold front in the region. Officials encouraged people to consult local sheriff’s office’s websites for the most current information about roads.

— Kate McGee, Neelam Bohra and Alejandro Serrano

Panhandle ranchers and farmers seek aid to rebuild

March 5, 2024 at 9:22 p.m.

Farmers and ranchers in the Panhandle lost livestock, buildings and infrastructure in the wildfires still raging through the region. Now they’re looking to rebuild.

More than 100 people packed a room at the Hemphill County Exhibition Center on Tuesday afternoon looking for answers about what government assistance they can tap to help them recover from staggering financial losses caused by the fires. The economic toll from the wildfires, which include the largest in the state’s history, hasn’t been officially tallied. But Panhandle ranchers have likely lost thousands of cattle in the wildfires, according to some preliminary estimates, and hundreds of thousands of acres have burned.

“We’re going to make it through these times: We’ve made it through them in the past and we’re going to make it through now,” Andy Holloway, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agent based in Hemphill County, told a standing-room-only crowd.

The wildfires in the Panhandle have wrought havoc on the ecosystem farmers and ranchers need to make a living. They not only lost livestock in the inferno but the hay and grass to feed them, the buildings that house them and the fences that pen them in.

Tatum Swenhaugen, who raises show pigs with her husband on land south of Canadian, said flames killed 40 of her pigs — about half of her stock, a loss of about $70,000.

The fire also burned down every building on the property used to house and breed the pigs, Swenhaugen said. Those buildings need to be rebuilt soon so they can breed enough pigs to sell during their busy season in the fall, she said.

“That's our main income: when we get to sell those babies in the fall,” Swenhaugen said. “So we've got to have our barns ready to go pretty quick.”

— Joshua Fechter and Neelam Bohra