Texas Wildfires Rage on With No End in Sight

“The bull’s-eye is on West Texas and the Panhandle,” said April Saginor, a spokeswoman for the Texas Forest Service, referring to the area where conditions were considered “critical to extremely critical” — as they had been for days.

On Monday, firefighters responded to 10 new fires, in addition to battling 20 existing uncontained blazes — “actually kind of a light day,” Ms. Saginor said.

Texas’ worst drought in nearly half a century has turned the state into a tinderbox. Fires have destroyed more than 105 homes in recent days and stretched the state’s firefighting resources.

In a letter to President Obama requesting federal emergency assistance, Gov. Rick Perry said Saturday that the fires, some of which have been burning for more than a week, threatened or had affected all but two of Texas’ 254 counties.

One of the biggest fires, covering parts of Stephens and Palo Pinto Counties, about 100 miles west of Dallas, has destroyed at least 31 homes and threatened more than 600. Four smaller fires converged into one, known as the Possum Kingdom Complex, to cover about 147,065 acres.

North of San Angelo, officials said they had saved more than 400 homes, but were still trying to contain a 150,000-acre fire. Foster Communications Coliseum — normally the site of San Angelo’s rodeo — became a command center and refreshment station for the wranglers of the so-called Wildcat fire, many of whom are volunteers. One firefighter died Friday responding to the blaze in Eastland.

“The smoke was bad; ashes were falling from the sky,” said Kindra McClure, who had to evacuate the home she shares with her grandparents about 15 miles north of San Angelo on Friday night. “I couldn’t even breathe.”

“Everybody was getting their horses into trailers and taking them to the coliseum,” Ms. McClure, 18, added. “It’s been a mess, for sure.”

Her family returned home after one night, but Ms. McClure could still see towers of smoke from her back porch.

Ms. McClure said people in the community were being more mindful of prevention, forgoing barbecues and extinguishing cigarettes before tossing them away. Those behavior changes are required under burn bans in force in 201 Texas counties.

On Monday, the authorities charged a homeless man with arson for lighting a campfire and leaving it unattended, igniting a blaze in southwest Austin that destroyed six homes.

National Weather Service meteorologists expected a “lull” in the high winds on Wednesday, and a cold front could bring rain that evening. But the critical fire conditions are likely to return on Thursday.

“We expect this to go on for a while,” Ms. Saginor said, “so we’re in it for the long haul.”