Almost 500 homes have been destroyed as a 16-mile wildfire spread across parts of Texas 30 miles south of the state capital Austin.
An estimated 5,000 people are reported to have been forced to leave their homes because of the Bastrop fire. Officials said the fire had “grown considerably” yesterday and was now burning on 25,000 acres.
Texas Governor Rick Perry cut short presidential campaigning, and said the next 48 to 72 hours would be “crucial”. Fires are burning across drought-hit Texas, which has been hit by high winds generated by Tropical Storm Lee, hundreds of miles to the east.
Recent fires across Texas have burned 3.5 million acres, an area Perry described as being roughly the size of Connecticut. Jan Amen of the Texas Forest Service earlier described the central Texas blaze as “a monster” that had been “zero percent contained”.
The blaze is the largest of dozens of wildfires burning throughout the state, including more than 60 that started on Sunday. Perry said: “I urge Texans to take extreme caution as we continue to see the devastating effects of sweeping wildfires impacting both rural and urban areas of the state.”