Crews from Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, and Flower Mound are among those who responded to wildfires there. Three fires are still active– all are between 87 and 96 percent contained. NBC 5’s Tahera Rahman spoke with one Fort Worth firefighter about what it was like on the front lines.
There is a light at the end of a fiery tunnel for first responders in the Texas Panhandle; three active wildfires are now mostly contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.
The Forest Service's incident viewer shows that the state's largest-ever fire, the Smokehouse Creek fire, is 87% contained, as of Friday afternoon.
The nearby Windy Deuce fire is 92% contained, and the Grapevine Creek fire is 96% contained.
In Hutchinson County, dispatch audio reveals the moments first responders realized they were facing a fire they couldn't battle alone.
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“Pulling out, pull out! Everybody pull out!" first responders shout. "I would love to have any and every resource that's available in this state right now, please.”
A group of firefighters in Fort Worth, more than 300 miles away, were among those who answered that call.
"There wasn’t much rest in the first couple of days. We had very few resources available," said Fort Worth Fire Department Captain Cody Stilwell.
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His team arrived on the second day of the Smokehouse Creek Fire, chasing it from Stinnett to Canadian, Texas.
He said they helped protect buildings and evacuate people as more crews came in from across the state.
“It was a long 36 hours for the first couple of days," Stilwell said.
It was just the beginning of what would become a historic and deadly blaze, spanning more than a million acres.
"Well, we knew it would get pretty big just from the weather. And the weather that day, didn't know it was going to become the largest ever in Texas," Stilwell said.
Neighbors are now reeling among the ruins.
“It's devastating because you know that all these people that have lost their houses, what do they come back to?” one neighbor told NBC 5's Candace Sweat in Fritch, one of the hardest hit by the fires.
“This is basically what it looks like everywhere on this side of the panhandle, not much out there other than burnt trees and grass," Stilwell said over a Zoom interview with NBC 5.
But he said hope comes from this: The communities no longer face the fires alone.
"Seeing all the support that's flowing into these communities from all over Texas and the nation, really, from donations to water and food, to hay for all the cattle," he said. "It's been a pretty amazing journey here."
