Red flag fire warnings are up across the Texas Panhandle, as well as parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas, the National Weather Service said. While critical fire conditions exist in a wide swath of that area, the region around Amarillo, Texas and a small part of Oklahoma are facing an extreme situation, the highest category, the US Storm Prediction Center said.
Dry winds will sweep the area from late morning to early in the evening Wednesday and any fires that start can spread rapidly, the weather service said.
Emily Thornton, a fire weather forecaster at the US Storm Prediction Center, wrote in an outlook that the area has a dense amount of grasses and vegetation known broadly as “fuel load.”
“Extensive fuel loading is present in the region and will support large fire spread,” she wrote. “In addition, the latest fuel guidance indicates fuels have dried even further since the wildfire outbreak at the end of February.”
A storm is developing across Colorado that will whip winds through the region during Wednesday, she said.
Photo: A destroyed ranch home following the Smokehouse Creek Fire in Miami, Texas, US, on Sunday, March 3, 2024. The Smokehouse Creek fire in Texas is the largest in the state’s history and has consumed more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares), according to Texas A&M Forest Service with dry gusts up to 50 miles per hour sweeping across Texas and the Plains through Sunday.
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