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This photo provided by Texas Parks and Wildlife shows a fire burning in Bastrop State Park in Bastrop, Texas. More than 700 homes have been destroyed in at least 57 wildfires across rain-starved Texas, most of them in one devastating blaze near Austin that is still raging out of control, officials said Tuesday. (AP)
Crews in Texas Tuesday battled dozens of wildfires that have destroyed more than 700 homes in just two days and forced thousands to flee thick smoke and flames.
"This is one of the meanest fires I've ever seen," Texas Governor Rick Perry told reporters after an aerial tour of the homes destroyed in the Steiner Ranch subdivision.
"The magnitudes of these losses are pretty stunning."
The Republican White House hopeful had been campaigning in South Carolina ahead of a major debate on Wednesday night when the fires swept through subdivisions and towns near the state capitol of Austin.
He bowed out of several events so he could survey the damage and meet with evacuees.
The fires have been fanned by winds from a tropical depression that hit the southern United States over the weekend and have flared across ground left tinder dry by an intense summer drought, killing at least two people.
The worst blaze remains uncontrolled after devouring 30,000 acres (47 square miles or 121 square kilometers) and nearly 600 homes in Bastrop county, prompting mass evacuations as weather forecasts suggested the situation would get worse before it gets better.
More than 250 fire personnel battled the blaze in Bastrop, with planes and helicopters dumping water from above, but across the state the crews struggled to refill at lakes and rivers drained by the long, hot drought.
"There's practically a fleet of aircraft in the air," said Jan Amen, a Forest Service spokeswoman in Bastrop. "Problem is, we have to share them with other fires because there's so many burning in the area."
In East Texas, a fast-moving fire is believed to have killed a 20-year-old woman and her child, who failed to get out of their trailer home fast enough.
Gregg County Sheriff Maxey Cerliano told reporters the victims were found dead near Gladewater, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) east of Fort Worth.
Firefighters have responded to 181 blazes that have burned more than 118,000 acres in the past week, according to the latest situation report from the Texas Forest Service.
More than 3.5 million acres -- about the size of the state of Connecticut -- have been burned by 18,719 blazes since the wildfire season began in December.
Officials have ruled out arson as the cause of the fires and instead blame Tropical Depression Lee, which was graded as a more serious tropical storm when it came ashore in southern Louisiana early Sunday.
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