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Smokehouse Creek rages on: Brave volunteer firefighters battle flames of largest blaze in Texas history that has torched more than one MILLION acres of land and left two dead, with blaze just 15% contained

Just 15 percent of the Smokehouse Creek fire has been contained, as brave volunteer firefighters continue to battle the flames of the largest wildfire in Texas history Friday morning. 

Two people lost their lives in the blaze that has already torched a staggering 1.07million acres, or 1,700 square miles of the Texas panhandle. 


Video footage captures fire crews from the Wheeler Volunteer Fire Department and throughout the Lone Star state tirelessly fighting the inferno. 

Some relief came with parts of the burn zone being blanketed with inches of snowfall in the southwest Texas Panhandle, and there was no fire growth. 


As of yesterday, the fire was a mere three percent contained, and by Friday noon, the A&M First Service reported an increase to 15 percent containment. 


But the wildfire is still an burning an estimated 1,075,000 acres in size as of Friday afternoon. Concerns persist with the return of dry, windy weather, posing a risk for critical fire conditions through the weekend. 

Cindy Owen and Joyce Blankenship and were identified the two victims of what has been dubbed the Smokehouse Creek Fire. 

Owen died on Thursday morning after she tried to flee from her truck as it became engulfed by the fire on FM 33 outside Pampa on Tuesday.


She desperately called her family, saying she could not breathe as she stepped out of the truck only to be overcome by the smoke and flames.


Another motorist found her after the flames moved on and she was taken to a burn center in Oklahoma City where she died on Thursday morning.

‘Cindy was one of the best people we ever knew,’ her sister-in-law Jennifer Mitchell said.


‘She smiled and laughed and always keeps everyone in the same infectious mood. She was always willing to help anyone who needed her.’ 

Her death follows that of an 83-year-old grandmother who was identified as the first victim of the terrifying wildfire. 

Joyce Blankenship lived in the Scotts Acres neighborhood, and her body was found in Stinnett, Hutchinson County Public Engagement Coordinator Deidra Thomas said in a statement on Wednesday.



Fritch resident Tyler McCain, his wife and three young daughters evacuated during the fire and returned to find their entire home burnt to ashes on Wednesday.

Tyler was video chatting with his heartbroken family, showing them the damage when his 3-year-old daughter started crying, reported CBS News.

 ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked his daughter Addison. ‘I want to see house,’ she responded through sobs. 


‘That’s what broke me up the most. She was asking about her favorite teddy bear and her puzzle,’ he said.

‘And I’m like, “Why didn’t I grab some of that stuff?” I felt like in some way I failed them because I couldn’t protect what we had.’


Tyler said him and his wife Alazzai packed a small bag of clothes and important paperwork before evacuating to an Airbnb on Monday. 


When the couple heard the fire was getting closer to their home, Alazzai rushed back to get their dogs when a sheriff told her the fire was just minutes away.

As they drove down their street on Wednesday, they said other homes on the block were untouched.

Photos show all that was left where their home once stood was ash, debris and a burnt swing set.


‘I started shaking. My wife, she was crying pretty loudly. I got out of the car and kind of dropped to my knees and we’re just sitting there,’ Tyler said.


Photos and videos showed scorched homes and property throughout the Panhandle reduced to piles of ash and scenes of charred vehicles and blackened earth.

The wildfire is the equivalent size of the whole of Rhode Island and bigger than the top 20 California wildfires in the last 90 years. 


The West Odessa Volunteer Fire Department confirmed earlier this week: ‘This is now both the largest and most destructive fire in Texas History.’ It’s now the second largest in US history.

Thick smoke caused by the cataclysmic fire was visible a seven-hour drive away in El Paso. The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for 11 million people. 

Canadian, Texas resident Tresea Rankin told CBS News a rolling burning tumbleweed came on to her property and burned down her family home of 38 years. 



‘I was Facetiming with my son, who is in the service, and he said ‘Mom leave,”’ she said. As she returned to her charred home she said, ‘You lace up your shoes and you do what you gotta do. I gotta have a home.”

The Windy Deuce fire, burning across 142,000 acres, has 40 percent containment as of Friday, and the Magenta fire burning 3,300 acres is at 85 percent containe. 

The 687 Reamer fire is at 2,000 acres and 10 percent contained, and the Grape Vine Creek fire is at 30,000 acres and 60 percent contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. 


Sharing photos from the scene, East Montgomery County Fire Department said its crews ‘are enduring tough weather conditions on top of the fire threat.’ 

‘From pumps and nozzles freezing and more. They’re adapting and over coming and working around the clock. Weather conditions this weekend will be fire favorable, which will hinder them even more,’ the department wrote. 


Firefighters with Texarkana Texas Fire Department surprising woke up to snow on Thursday morning, but the areas where they worked didn’t receive much moisture. 


The department said: ‘Work continues in the panhandle. Unfortunately, the snow didn’t help as much as we would hope. It didn’t fall in all areas where fire is located.’ 

The Pantex plant, the country’s main facility that assembles and disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal, had evacuated most of its personnel on Tuesday night as the fires raged out of control near its facility.

Early Wednesday, Pantex tweeted that the facility ‘is open for normal day shift operations’ and that all personnel were to report for duty according to their assigned schedule.


Dozens of cattle have also been killed, as devastating video footage revealed cattle burned to death in the aftermath of the fires sweeping across Texas.


A video shows cattle running away the massive Smokehouse Creek Fire that has burned a million of acres since igniting on Monday 

Another clip shows the scattered bodies of cattle that perished due to the flames – spreading at an average rate of 150 football field per minute.


Ranch workers were left without time to evacuate their livestock as the blazing fire approached, Katlyn Butler, whose husband works at Turkey Track Ranch, told CNN. 

‘We cut the fences and unfortunately had to get out due to firefighters having to go save communities,’ she said to the outlet.

‘We’ve lost cattle. Not sure what is alive and isn’t,’ Butler said. 



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