One Dead, Homes Destroyed in West Texas Wildfires

DALLAS (AP) _ A child died, dozens of homes were destroyed and hundreds of people were out of their homes as wildfires swept across parts of West Texas.

Texas Forest Service spokesman Lewis Kearney says a Colorado City hospital and nursing home were evacuated late Sunday as a 1,000-acre wildfire approached.

One firefighter suffered second-degree burns fighting a fire near Colorado City. One person died and two others were injured in an eight-car pileup on smoke-shrouded Interstate 20 in Midland Sunday.

Kearney said almost 88,000 acres of West Texas were blackened from the Panhandle to the Permian Basin and rolling plains Sunday, destroying 58 homes. He said 27 were destroyed and seven were damaged in Potter County near Amarillo by Sunday’s biggest fire, which scorched 30,000 acres just northeast of Amarillo.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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