One of the devastating wildfires in the Texas Panhandle.
Nearly 1,000,000 acres burned with one of the fires threatening
to become the largest in Texas history.
Mola Lenghi is on the scene has the latest for
us.
Good morning Mola.
Well, good morning, Robin officials confirming at least one person
killed about 15 miles from where we are here in
Fridge,
Texas in those fires. This as they are just now
beginning to realize and assess all of the damaged homes
and businesses like this.
Completely lost as fires continue to rage this morning.
Overnight those vicious wildfires in the Texas Panhandle turning deadly
as the devastation left in their path comes into view.
An 83 year old grandmother killed in Stinnett,
TX homes reduced to ash.
Drone video showing swaths of burnt land as smoke billows
across the plains.
The fires stretching from the small towns of Canadian to
Fridge,
Texas. Nearly 1,000,000 acres of scorched earth as firefighters work
to contain the blaze,
many pouring into shelters. We had 50 plus people
that has come through the fires so massive they could
be seen from space.
You have extremely high winds,
dry fuels, and low relative humidity,
and those conditions really make for a situation where these
fires can grow really rapidly.
Evacuating in a panic, some folks returned to find the
charred remains of what was once their living room,
their kitchen, their car, their home.
Mallory Wilhelm raised her five kids in their home of
11 years.
This is my bathtub inside
this window now. This is all that remains when you
first put eyes on it.
How'd that hit you?
Made it feel real. Didn't feel real.
It still kind of doesn't feel real.
Just gut wrenching
this driver face to face with flames,
embers whipping against the windshield,
and video capturing the home of Hemphill County Sheriff Brent
Clap and his wife Rachel.
Burning to the ground. Barely had time to escape.
Get some clothes, get your medicine
if you need it and
get your animals and go.
But the community here stays resilient.
Everybody I know is lucky to be alive and we'll
make it through
firefighters making some progress yesterday,
but they are up against the clock as conditions are
expected to get worse.
You can already see winds getting much worse today,
Michael. Yeah, when they're all with the problem there,
Mola, and we're going to bring in Sam champions in
for ginger,
starting with the forecast for this Fire Zone.
Sam, good morning. Good morning,
Michael. It's incredibly important because that fire in two days
became Texas's second largest wildfire.
And as Mala said, the winds will be at about
30 mph today, but there's stronger winds moving in this
weekend.
That's an old measurement. We're waiting for the Texas A&M
Fire Service to come out with their new measurement today,
and it may be the largest one in Texas.
Now watch this cold front sweep on through.
This is where that Fire Zone is.
So 30 mile per winds again all the way into
the weekend.
Some gusts to 40 to
60 mph. Let's deal with that East Coast front.
That cold front had 60 to 70 mile per hour
winds as well.
Look at the tree damage in Atlanta straight into that
building,
not on top of it.
We had tree damage in New York.
We had Lake Effect snow in Syracuse.
The latest Syracuse or Lake Effect snow is Riley around
10 inches.
That could be 14 inches of snow with this cold
air.
As this cold air moves in New York,
you get a chill day today,
but you're going to mild up a little bit by
the time we get in toward the weekend.
These are record temperatures that come in by the weekend
guys.
So there's a lot of warmth coming back into play
for the middle of next week.
Can you just get it to stay when it's here
one way or the other?
It'd be great. Yeah, I would like that.
Sam, thank you so much for that.