February 27-28, 2024 -- Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas

The sun has risen on the Texas Panhandle and revealed the charred, ashen remnants of towns overrun by raging wildfires.

These photos capture some of the initial views from the ground Wednesday.

The Smokehouse Creek Fire has charred hundreds of thousands of acres in the Texas Panhandle as of Wednesday morning, and ranks among the largest fires on record in the state.

Crews from different parts of Texas are coming together to help fight the raging Smokehouse Creek Fire. One crew from the Fort Worth Fire Department traveled nearly 300 miles to assist.

Along the way, firefighters captured dramatic video of smoke from the massive fire blocking out the sky, tinting the entire area in an eerie sepia hue.

In the video, glowing orange flames rage on the side of the road, their advance thwarted by pavement but threatening to jump to the other side.

As the crew drives deeper into the smoke, burning embers blow across the vehicle's windshield as everything turns orange.

Emerging from the thickest smoke, the video shows bright flames burning on both sides of the roadway.

With a fire as large as Smokehouse Creek, impacts spread beyond what burns. Smoke from this fire is forecast to overspread the western half of Texas through the afternoon before winds shift later Wednesday evening.

No one was killed in a Texas town at the epicenter of the out-of-control Smokehouse Creek Fire, but homes have been burned.

The town's emergency services are still assessing the damage, according to Bartlett, and trying to figure out ways to relocate the residents who have lost their homes.

About half the town of Canadian managed to evacuate and others were forced to shelter in place as wind shifts pushed flames in several different directions, Bartlett said.

The shifting winds "made first responders (face) a very difficult situation that were trying to fight the fire,” Bartlett told CNN. “And I might also add that most of the firefighters in this area are all volunteer, so these people leave their homes and families to put their lives in risk.” 

The rapid growth of intense wildfires burning across portions of Texas and Oklahoma was captured from space Tuesday afternoon.

Satellite data shows how wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph pushed flames east quickly, before a strong cold front sliced through and shifted the wind direction. All fires then also changed direction and spread southward during the late afternoon.

Heat from the fires shows up as bright orange on the satellite. The cold front in the satellite imagery appears as a curved line of bubbly clouds moving from north to south. The front starts near the Texas and Oklahoma border at the beginning of the loop and arrives south of the fires by the end of the loop.

On an episode of The Assignment with Audie Cornish, two former firefighters speak with Audie Cornish about what it is like fight fire in the face of increasing danger, and why they left to join the front lines of fighting climate change.

“Firefighting is only one piece of addressing climate change within this space. It's also land management, community planning. It's policy. And that's where there's the chance for a set of changes to help moving forward,” says Megan Fitzgerald McGowan, a former firefighter who now works at a program focused on teaching people how to adapt to a life of fire risk at the National Fire Prevention Association.

Riva Duncan also a former fire fighter now lobbies Congress for better pay and benefits for federal fire workers because what was once considered a seasonal job is now year-round work. She's vice president of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters and says climate change is a specter hovering over their work, “…it's impacting their mental health or it's impacting their family life. And we have a much higher divorce rate in wildland fire, much higher suicide rate in wildland fire. But these tied directly to climate change because of these longer fire seasons.”

Listen and follow The Assignment with Audie Cornish wherever you get your podcasts.

Editor’s note: This episode originally aired on August 17, 2023, after the Maui wildfires.

People who evacuated from the town of Fritch, Texas, as the massive Smokehouse Creek wildfire approached are being warned that destruction in the area is significant.

“The easiest way to put this is, I don’t think a lot of folks that live in the Fritch area are probably going to be prepared for what they’re going to see as they pull into town,” Hutchinson County Emergency Management spokesperson Deidra Thomas said in a Facebook update to residents.

“There are still homes that are on fire,” Thomas added.

The main road into the heavily damaged south side of Fritch is still closed, Thomas advised. “Right now, we can’t let you in,” she said. “It is not safe to do that.”

The fire also knocked out water service in the town.

The extreme conditions driving the explosive growth of the Texas fires have calmed after a cold front moved through Tuesday evening, but they won't last.

Temperatures were in the 70s with 40 to 45 mph sustained winds and gusts up to 65 mph at the time of the most extreme fire growth Tuesday.

Here's how the weather will play out in the Texas Panhandle fire zone in the coming days:

Wednesday: High temperatures will be in the 50s with light winds. The winds will begin to pick up again this evening, creating new challenges.

Thursday: A very light rain and snow mix is possible. Any snow accumulation would remain below 0.5 inches. The high temperature will remain in the 50s, but winds will be stronger, 15 to 20 mph with wind gusts up to 30 mph.

Friday through the weekend: Dangerous fire weather conditions return as temperatures rise into the upper 70s, drier air arrives and winds increase to 20 to 30 mph, with even stronger gusts.