Wildfires are currently raging in the US states of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
Only in Texas, flames have burned an area of more than 50 thousand hectares. The wildfires have already killed 6 people (4 in Texas and 2 in Kansas), injured plenty of residents and burned down at least 30 houses in Englewood, Kansas. 12 thousand people have been evacuated around Reno.
Wildfires burning in Colorado, Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma have forced evacuations and destroyed several buildings.
Kansas
Kansas wildfires have burned about 625 square miles of land and killed one person. Most of the state’s charred land is in Clark County, where 30 structures were damaged. About half of those structures are near Englewood.
The largest evacuations elsewhere were in Reno County, Kansas, where 10,000 to 12,000 people voluntarily left their homes Monday night.
Several hundred more people evacuated their homes in Russell, Ellsworth and Comanche counties, in central Kansas.
Oklahoma
That fire started in Oklahoma, where it burned an estimated 390 square miles in Beaver County.
A separate blaze scorched more than 155 square miles of land in neighboring Harper County and killed a woman who had a heart attack while trying to keep her farm near Buffalo from burning.
Texas
In the Texas Panhandle, three fires burned about 500 square miles of land and killed at least four people. One of them near Amarillo threatened about 150 homes.
A larger fire in the northeast corner of the Panhandle near the Oklahoma border was 50 percent contained, but responsible for a death on Monday.
A wildfire in Gray County, also in the Texas Panhandle, killed three ranch hands trying to save cattle.
Colorado
In northeastern Colorado near the Nebraska border, firefighters battled a blaze that burned more than 45 square miles and was 50 percent contained Tuesday.
Officials said the fire had destroyed at least five homes and 15 outbuildings, with no serious injuries.
All of eastern Colorado is classified as either moderately or abnormally dry along with major parts of Kansas, almost all of Oklahoma and some of northern Texas.
Good news! The powerful wind gusts that fanned the wildfires in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas should diminish to about 10 to 20 mph on Wednesday.
