Map shows spread of wildfires in Texas after nuclear plant evacuated

Map shows wildfires spreading across Texas (Picture: Texas A&M Forest Service Incident Viewer)

Out-of-control wildfires across the Texas Panhandle have caused an evacuation at the US’s main nuclear weapons plant and are rapidly spreading across the state.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire that started on Monday afternoon has burned through more than 850,000 acres of land and is already the second largest fire in the state’s history, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. As of Wednesday afternoon, it had also charred 31,600 acres in neighboring Oklahoma, said the state’s emergency management agency.

More than 1,057,000 acres have been scorched by at least five fire across both states, officials said.

The rapid speed of the spread of the firesis ‘definitely not standard’, said forest service administrative associate Melissa Toole, according to NBC News.

The Flower Mound Fire Department out of Flower Mound, Texas, helping to contain a wildfire in the panhandle region of Wednesday (Picture: EPA)

The Smokehouse Creek Fire was only 3% contained as of Wednesday night. It forced Pantex, where American nuclear weapons are assembled and dissembled, to briefly shutter its operations on Tuesday night.

In Texas, the fire has also caused many residents to evacuate and put homes, farms and businesses in danger. At least one person has died from the fires in the panhandle.

As the inferno approached some populated areas of Hemphill and Roberts counties on Tuesday, evacuation or shelter-in-place advisories were put in place.

The Hemphill County town of Canadian, roughly 100 miles northwest of Amarillo, is the epicenter of the blaze. Residents were urged to shelter-in-place.

Smoke rises from smoldering hay bales outside the town of Canadian, Texas on Wednesday (Picture: AP)

Canadian Mayor Terill Bartlett told CNN that many homes have been lost but no one has died and ‘luckily, no one was severely injured’.

Other fires raging as of Wednesday night are the Windy Deuce Fire which has burned 142,000 acres and is 30% contained, the Grape Vine Creek Fire which has charred 30,000 acres and is 60% contained, the Magenta Fire which has wiped out 2,500 acres and is 65% contained, and the 687 Reamer Fire which has destroyed 2,000 acres in Hutchinson County and is 10% contained.

The largest blaze to be recorded in Texas is the East Amarillo Complex fire in 2006, which scorched 907,245 acres.

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