Wildfires claim 2 more lives in drought-stricken Texas
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Xinhua, September 8, 2011
The death toll from raging wildfires in drought-stricken Texas rose to four on Tuesday, after two bodies were found in Bastrop county, officials said.
The bodies were discovered in charred wreckage from an unchecked wildfire in the county near Texas' capital city of Austin.
"This is what we don't like to see," Bastrop county judge Ronnie McDonald said while announcing the new fatalities at a press conference.
On Sunday, another fire in eastern Texas killed a mother and her 18-month-old child when flames devoured their mobile home.
The blaze, which started around 2 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) Sunday northeast of Bastrop county, about 50 km (30 miles) from Austin, has scorched 33,089 acres of Bastrop county land and destroyed 550 homes, emptying 20 neighborhoods and forcing about 5,000 people to leave their homes, officials said.
More than 250 firefighters from around the country have come to Bastrop to help. They have made some progress, but have not put the fire under control, local officials said.
Dry air, high winds from Tropical Storm Lee and drought conditions that prevail in Texas have made fighting the fire extremely difficult, according to media reports.
At the Bastrop Convention and Exhibit Center, which is turned into a command center for the county's fire fighting, people who were evacuated gathered to share information and tried to find out how their homes were.
Elizabeth Jarnagin, owner of an online bookshop, said when she first saw the black cloud over the sky, she thought it was a rain cloud that could bring rain to the drought-plagued county. But later, she found it was smoke from the fire. The fire is one of the worst in the county, she said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry, who left the presidential campaign trail Monday in South Carolina to return to Texas to monitor the fire, said Tuesday that the number of homes destroyed by wildfires since the fire season began last December had surpassed 1,000 statewide. Some 3.5 million acres of Texas land have burned.
The Texas Forest Service reportedly responded to more than 60 new fires over the weekend that scorched nearly 33,000 acres of land. The Bastrop fire is the largest of them.
