By Brian K. Sullivan, Joe Carroll and Julie Fine

Texas emergency crews are battling the worst wildfire in state history amid forecasts for several more days of dry, windy weather that will make their task more difficult.

Tens of thousands of cattle already may have perished and entire ranches have been wiped out, said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. At least one person died due to the blaze — an octogenarian who was trapped in her home, according to multiple media reports. Meanwhile, utility owner Xcel Energy Inc.’s stock plummeted after it disclosed a law firm said it might be responsible for damages.

The largest of multiple blazes scorching the Texas Panhandle — the Smokehouse Creek Fire — expanded more than 20-fold in just two days and now covers 1.075 million acres (1,700 square miles), according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. That surpasses the 907,245-acre East Amarillo Complex fire of 2006 that formerly held the record.

“I know ranchers up there — families that have had these ranchers for more than 100 years — everything is gone,” Miller said during an interview. “All they have is the clothes on the back. You can’t describe how bad it is.”

The region is vulnerable because winter storms have skipped that part of the Lone Star State, which already had been struggling with years of drought, said Paul Pastelok, head of long-range forecasting at AccuWeather Inc. This means the landscape is dry and brush is primed to burn.

“The potential for wildfire activity will increase again for the Plains region Saturday and Sunday due to strong winds and dry fuels,” the A&M service warned in a statement.

Read More: Xcel Drops as Law Firm Says Utility May Have Texas Fire Link

The conflagrations have scorched houses, shut highways and schools, and menaced critical infrastructure including an oil refinery and nuclear-weapons facility.

Natural gas driller Pantera Energy Co. was forced to shut roughly 1% of its production and pipes at one field suffered fire damage.

“We’ll have to replace some surface equipment over the next couple weeks,” Pantera President Jason Herrick said during an interview. “Ours was not too bad.”

Xcel’s stock drop erased almost $1.9 billion of its market cap after an unnamed law firm representing property owners affected by the wildfire asked the company to preserve as evidence a fallen utility pole located near the potential area of origin, Xcel said in a regulatory filing Thursday. Xcel owns Southwestern Public Service Company, which operates in the region. 

“We will cooperate with officials while conducting our own investigations to determine the causes of the fires,” an Xcel spokesperson said in an emailed statement. 

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

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