300,000 Acres Burned in Wildfires Across Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas

AMARILLO, TX — Wildfires that have raged across Kansas and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma have burned more than 300,000 acres this week.

Drought conditions and high winds added fuel to the fires, which became so intense that smoke and dust could be seen from space in NASA images.

The dust was also blamed for poor visibility that led to a multiple-vehicle crash on I-25 outside of Pueblo, Colorado, that killed five people and hospitalized more than 20 others.

In northern Texas, more than 30,000 acres were burned as of Thursday evening, with seven separate wildfires in the Panhandle.

As of Friday morning, all but two of them were contained. The 8-Ball Fire in Armstrong county southeast of Amarillo was 70% contained after burning 13,500 acres, while the Lavender Fire in Oldham County was 50% contained with more than 18,000 acres burned.

As of Friday morning, the Texas A&M Forest Service incident tracker showed several active wildfires in the Texas Panhandle. The two notable fires were the 8 Ball fire, which was 13,500 acres and was 70% contained. The other fire was the Lavender fire, which was 18,423 acres and was 50% contained.

However, fire weather conditions are expected to worsen in the coming days. 

"Periods of strong winds are likely mid-next week across the central and southern Plains," the National Interagency Fire Center posted Friday. "While precipitation this weekend will mitigate the impact of the winds for some areas, those that receive only light rainfall are likely to have elevated to critical conditions with the winds."