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GRAHAM, Texas – Wildfires sweeping crossways hundreds of thousands of acres in parched Texas killed a firefighter, forced hundreds of evacuations — including an entire town — and blasted mountain of homes on Friday, officials said.

Strong winds were fueling fires that spanned most 655 conservativist miles, according to the Texas Forest Service. Some of the fires hit been executing for a hebdomad or more, including three in West Texas that hit charred a combined 400,000 acres.

Volunteer protector Pope M. Simmons, 51, died patch battling a 3,000-acre brightness weekday salutation nearby Eastland, a town most 130 miles westerly of Dallas, Mayor Mark Pipkin said. Simmons had been a protector for two decades, including 11 eld with Eastland's blast department, the politician said.

"Apparently he was overcome by smoke, lapse in a hollow and was consumed" by the fire, said Justice of the Peace James King, who pronounced Simmons departed at the environs along a agricultural road.

No another injuries hit been reported.

A brightness blasted most 30 homes and left a thick wear haze crossways the sky as it blasted most 20,000 acres around Possum Kingdom Lake, a popular activity blot most 120 miles westerly of Dallas. Officials winking the nearby state park and evacuated campsites, fearing that the blast would country soured the only access anchorage to the arboreous area.

"The fire, it's a intense one," Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Rob McCorkle said. "This is pretty unusual to hit this many fires going crossways the state at the time."

Three large fires executing in Caddoan County, most 150 miles northwest of metropolis nearby the Oklahoma border, had blasted most 30 homes. Wildfires also prompted officials to egest Gorman, a municipality of most 1,200 residents.

"The school, the nursing bag and the flooded municipality has been evacuated," Gorman City Clerk Jill Rainey said.

Evacuations also were sequential for most 200 homes in the Possum Kingdom Atlantic and some in diminutive communities north of San Angelo and Andrews, along the Texas-New Mexico border. Shelters were ordered up for grouping who had to leave their homes.

A expeditionary structure Byzantine nearby Sheppard Air Force Base in Caddoan Falls was evacuated for most two hours as the blast threatened to advise in, but no buildings were damaged, humble spokesman martyr historiographer said.

"It got nearby enough to scare a lot of people," historiographer said.

Some of the fires hit been violent for days, though winds on weekday helped flames vie crossways pastures and roadsides to spend areas the filler of a football earth in a minute.

Strong winds are exemplary for spring, but this March was the driest in Texas since 1895, said Texas Forest Service spokeswoman songster Huffman.

In West Texas, a blast that started by a 10 days past had grown to most 105,000 acres in Stonewall, King and theologist counties by Friday, patch another 149,000-acre blast that began early this hebdomad continuing violent in Kent, Stonewall and Fisher counties. A removed blast in the Atlantic that started nearly a hebdomad past has spread to 165,000 acres in Jeff solon County, most 200 miles easterly of El Paso.

"There's an abundance of very parched aggregation and it serves as kindling," Huffman said.

McCorkle said strong winds were crescendo the chance that the blast nearby Possum Kingdom State Park could nearby soured the only anchorage accessing the area, so county officials asked that the park be closed.

"This existence a weekend, it would belike be pretty full," McCorkle said. "They desired to intend everybody out."

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Associated Press writers Juan Carlos Llorca in El Paso, and Matt Curry and Linda histrion Ball in metropolis contributed to this report.

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