By Sean Murphy and Jim Vertuno, Associated Press

CANADIAN, Texas — A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches.

Authorities warned that the damage to communities on the high plains could be extensive.

Known as the Smoke House Creek Fire, the largest blaze expanded to more than 1,300 square miles and jumped into parts of neighboring Oklahoma. It is now larger than the state of Rhode Island, and the Texas A&M Forest Service said the flames were only about 3% contained.

The largest fire recorded in state history was the 2006 East Amarillo Complex fire, which burned about 1,400 square miles and resulted in 13 deaths.

Authorities had not reported any deaths or injuries as of Wednesday morning while huge plumes of smoke billowed hundreds of feet in the air. But officials warned residents of potentially large property losses.

"There was one point where we couldn't see anything," said Greg Downey, 57, describing his escape from the flames as flames bore down on his neighborhood. "I didn't think we'd get out of it."

"When we came out, the sky had gone black."

Hemphill County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Kendall described the charred terrain as being "like a moonscape. ... It's just all gone."

Kendall said about 40 homes were burned around the perimeter of the town of Canadian, but no buildings were lost inside the community.

"We started getting those losses in the dark, so we didn't really know what we had until this morning, until we could see," he said.

The town of Fritch, with a population of less than 2,000, lost hundreds of homes in a 2014 fire and appeared to be hit hard again.

The people in that area are probably not "prepared for what they're going to see if they pull into town," Hutchinson County Emergency Management spokesperson Deidra Thomas said in a social media livestream. She compared the damage to a tornado.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50932036/wildfire-grows-into-one-of-largest-in-texas-history-as-flames-menace-multiple-small-towns