Smoke and Wariness Hang in the Air

Two days after a fierce brush fire swept through this rural cattle town, cinders still smoldered in the ruins Tuesday.

The air was heavy with the smell of smoke, and everywhere there was mangled metal, heaps of ash and swaths of blackened earth.

“It came up on us so fast there was nothing to do but get out of the way and watch the town burn,” said Kent Hanson, 49, who lost 300 acres in the blaze.

In Ringgold and elsewhere across Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, frequent high winds and a lingering drought have turned bone-dry communities into giant tinderboxes. Since Sunday, eight large fires have burned 200,000 acres in Texas alone.

“For the fires to be so widespread and just keep burning and burning, it’s completely unusual for Texas,” said Traci Weaver, spokeswoman for the Texas Forest Service. “But because we’ve been so dry, we’re seeing a long, unprecedented fire season.”

A spark from two power lines that were knocked together by wind is believed to have ignited the fire that engulfed Ringgold on New Year’s Day.

Smoke in the distance quickly became a 17-mile-long wall of flame that jumped a state highway and burned a capricious path through town. The post office was destroyed, but churches and a nearby school were spared. In all, 32 homes -- or half the residences in this town of 100 people -- burned to the ground.

Firefighters believe the last of Ringgold’s flames were extinguished Tuesday. All afternoon, cars streamed through the normally quiet town, slowing as people held cameras out their windows to record the devastation. Returning residents picked through the rubble, and many found little to salvage.

“It’s just too much for some people to start over and rebuild,” said resident Betty Murphy. “This is going to become a ghost town.”

Melvin Grissom, a 56-year-old truck driver, was away when Ringgold went up in flames. His next-door neighbor, Troy Taylor, tried to beat back the fire with a garden hose and shovels of dirt. When the water stopped running, Taylor improvised with bottles of spring water. Taylor managed to save his own house, but when a gas can exploded in Grissom’s garage, there was nothing left to do but run to safety and let it burn.

“It’s real hard to see your town burned up like this, but what else can you do but keep going on,” said Taylor, 36.

Behind him, freshly washed sheets flapped in the breeze, stirring up little flurries of ash on the ground. In an adjacent lot, a farm supply business had been reduced to a pile of twisted metal. Bordering the lot were the charred hulls of 11 tractors, still in a neat row.

Outside Ringgold’s 12-person volunteer fire department, Jesse Christopher wearily parked one of the town’s three makeshift fire engines -- Army trucks painted red and outfitted with large water tanks.

“They’re old and slow, but you make do with what you have,” said Christopher, an electrician. Still, when you’re facing a wall of 80-foot flames, the old fire engines are “about as useful as a garden hose,” he said.

Fifty-eight fire departments from eight counties helped fight the blaze. As the sun set Tuesday, eight firefighters from the neighboring town of Bowie slumped in folding chairs, their faces smudged with soot, eyes red from flying ash and lack of sleep.

“The fire, it was a moving monster,” Bowie Fire Chief Doug Page said. “But we think it’s over. For now.”

With no rain in sight, Texas authorities are sure more wildfires will plague the state, though they can’t predict when or where the next one will ignite.

“It’s random, all over the state,” Weaver said. “You could throw a dart at a map and that would be as good a prediction as any.”

In Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry has asked the White House to declare his state a disaster zone.

Driven by strong, dry winds, at least six fires sprang up in central and eastern Oklahoma on Tuesday, and buildings were destroyed in the town of Shamrock, northeast of Oklahoma City.

“They’re still too live for us to count” the acreage burned, said Bill Beebe, a spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture. “It’s getting pretty bad right now.”

Since Nov. 1, 360,000 acres have burned in Oklahoma.

In New Mexico, a fire that blackened 22,000 acres of grassland at the western edge of Hobbs and destroyed 11 homes was contained Tuesday, and firefighters watched warily to ensure that high winds didn’t revive it.

“If we can get through today, then I think we’ll get out of it and hopefully we won’t have any more,” Police Cmdr. Donnie Graham said.

Graham said that in his 17 years in the area, he had never seen such a devastating blaze.

“This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this,” he said. “We’ve had our share of grass fires, but this -- it’s something.”

Two other fires north of Hobbs burned 30,000 acres. They were also contained Tuesday.

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Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.