A pair of two-day-old North Texas wildfires continued to resist containment Wednesday after destroying 21 homes, officials said.
The Chalk Mountain Fire near Glen Rose, Texas, destroyed 16 homes and damaged five others as it remained on the move Wednesday after scorching almost 10 square miles of mostly short grass, brush and juniper as of midday Wednesday, said Alexandra Schwier, a Texas A&M Forest Service spokeswoman. The fire about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth was 10% contained Wednesday with embers from burning tree crowns flying up to 200 yards .
The fire at Possum Kingdom Lake destroyed five homes as it spread along its western shore, charring 500 acres about 70 miles west of Fort Worth. That fire was 15% contained Wednesday, the Forest Service said.Temperatures approaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit , combined with a relative humidity near 20% and 10-mph winds gusting to 20 mph , resisted efforts to contain the fiery spread beyond 10% containment, the Forest Service said.
“In these fuels, resistance to control is often high and makes suppression efforts challenging for firefighters,” said Luke Kanclerz, a Forest Service fire analyst, in a statement. Ninety firefighters worked around the clock on the Chalk Mountain Fire, focusing on protecting structures and digging a containment line around the fire's northeastern leading edge. A no-fly zone was declared for the area as air tankers operated overhead.
The fire extended into Hood County from neighboring Somervell County, where County Judge Danny Chambers said all 16 destroyed and five damaged homes were located. Chambers had issued a disaster declaration because of the possibility of evacuations and said most residents of the county's rural northwestern quadrant heeded a voluntary evacuation notice given for the county's rural northwestern quadrant.
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