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DALLAS – A Texas wildfire executing most 70 miles from the Dallas-Fort designer Atlantic is more than twice as big as preceding estimates, and firefighters module grappling arduous conditions weekday battling the blaze, officials said.

The blast at Possum Kingdom Lake most 70 miles west of Fort designer has grown to nearly 150,000 acres from estimates a day early of most 63,000 acres, according to the Texas Forest Service.

The Possum Kingdom blast is the fifth of at small 100,000 acres around Texas reportable in the time digit weeks. Most of the state is in extremity drought, and wildfires in the time hebdomad lonely hit blasted more than 1,000 square miles of parched Texas ranchland — an Atlantic that compounded would be the size of Rhode Island.

The defy is due to modify matters in North Texas on Tuesday, with temperatures prognosticate in the mid-90s and twine gusts of up to 35 mph. There is a quantity of daytime thunderstorms.

"Gusty winds, it's feat to attain whatever blast quelling efforts problematic," economist said Tuesday. "The public meet needs to be mindful that whatever ingest of exterior blast should not be considered."

More than 30 homes hit been confirmed blasted in the Possum Kingdom area, and the forest assist says that number module grow.

Trooper Gary Rozzell of the Texas Department of Public Safety said modify from the flames of fires nearby Possum Kingdom on the Brazos River grew so intense weekday that cinders were sent broad into the atmosphere. There, they became icy and fell to the connector in a impact titled "ice-capping," he said.

"They verify me it's like a roof dropping in," he said.

The fires drove residents from their homes along the get of the North Texas lake, with at small 18 homes and digit churches burned. The flames reached a hardware building containing fireworks on the reservoir's Hesperian shore, illumination up the period but causing no injuries, Palo Pinto County Judge king Nicklas said.

In West Texas, rugged, hilly terrain northerly of San Angelo was complicating efforts to bring the Wildcat Fire in dope County low control. However, firefighters gained connector on it weekday after using "burnouts" on Sun to clear out fuel needed by the advancing flames, according to Texas Forest Service spokesman Oscar Mestas. He said whatever sporadic agricultural areas were evacuated as a precaution, but no homes were reportable blasted by the 104,000-acre fire.

Two grouping who apparently wanted to see the fires from the air died when their single-engine biplane crashed nearby San Angelo, agent Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said Monday.

Witnesses told investigators the two-seater took off from Mathis Field/San Angelo Municipal Airport on Sun and that the digit grouping on board, whose identities had not been released, indicated they wanted to go on a looking activate over the wildfire, Lunsford said. The wreckage was institute weekday easterly of San Angelo.

In Austin, whatever residents of a neighborhood in the southwestern crossway of the capital city returned weekday to find charred ruins of their homes after a wildfire a day earlier.

The brightness blasted 10 homes in the strained Atlantic and significantly damaged 10 others, and those drawing are probable to uprise as blast officials move intelligent the area, said Austin Fire Department spokesman Palmer Buck.

David and Kris Griffin returned home from out-of-town weekend trips on weekday to find that their house was digit of at small 20 in their Austin neighborhood blasted or nearly blasted by a weekend wildfire.

Nearly every of their possessions went up in flames, and George, their felid of 11 years, was missing. Making their loss modify tougher to grasp, the homes on both sides of theirs survived relatively unscathed.

"All the another houses got ransomed except ours ... we're meet kind of speechless correct now," said Kris Griffin. She said uncovering the felid was their priority, because their possessions were replaceable.

Authorities live a 60-year-old unfortunate man with arson on Monday, saying he defied a nearly statewide defect forbiddance and mitt a campfire untended Saturday. Fire officials feature wind-blown embers lighted the blaze, which distribute apace finished a suburban-like Atlantic of south Austin and unnatural the evacuation of most 200 homes.

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Castro reportable from Austin, Texas.

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