Progress On Texas Fires, But 11 Dead

Firefighters claimed some progress in the battle against wildfires ravaging the Texas Panhandle, but any good news was tempered by a rising death toll and the distress of evacuees returning to charred homes.

Authorities said Monday they had begun to contain some of the wind-blown fires that burned more than 1,000 square miles across the Panhandle and South Plains since Sunday.

But firefighters were adjusting to winds that shifted out of the south and bracing for the possibility of dropping humidity as they continued strengthening the perimeter around the blazes Tuesday, said Jan Fulkerson, a spokeswoman for the Texas Forest Service.

The fires are blamed for 11 deaths, nine firefighter injuries and the destruction of numerous structures.

Two bodies were found in the ruins of a greenhouse, reports CBS News correspondent Lee Cowan.

An oxygen tank and a cane were still plainly visible in the ashes. The elderly man's body was found next to that of the young volunteer firefighter who had run up the hill to rescue him.

"She was definitely a hero. She gave her life to try to save her neighbor," said Hutchinson County Fire Marshall Danny Richards.

The rash of fires prompted the evacuation of eight towns: Hoover, Lefors, McLean, Miami, Old Mobeetie, New Mobeetie, Skellytown and Wheeler. Many of about 2,000 people evacuated were returning to find their neighborhoods affected by power outages and ravaged by flames.

Jennifer Orand, who had just moved into a new double-wide mobile home in Texroy with her husband, couldn't even find their wedding rings.

"There's nothing left," she told CBS News. "I just started crying."

After a deadly Sunday in which four people died in a crash on a smoke-shrouded highway and three died in fires near Borger, the Department of Public Safety late Monday attributed four more deaths to the fires.

Four men who worked for an oil drilling company had apparently left the roadway to reach their work site when their car was overcome by smoke. They abandoned the car trying to escape the fire but were overcome by flames, Trooper Daniel Hawthorne of the Department of Public Safety said Tuesday. Their identities have not been released.

The Sunday crash victims were identified as Susan Louise Schumacher, 49; Lawrence Schumacher, 56; Alexis Burroughs, 14, all of Grove, Okla., and Karen Lachelle DeWeese, 46, of Wagoner, Okla.

The three people who died Sunday in the Borger area became trapped by the fire. Bill Pfeffer, 84, and Katherine Darnell Ryan, 64, were killed inside Pfeffer's home. Ryan was trying to help Pfeffer evacuate. Jack Will, 94, died in his house, the Hutchinson County Justice of the Peace Office said.

Ranchers have reported losing all of their livestock, barns, equipment and fences. On one roadside, a dead cow was entangled in barbed wire, and another that had managed to break through the fence died just a few feet away.

"I heard of one of my friends who was out shooting cows this morning that were suffering because they were burned up too bad," said resident John Spearoan.

Numbers on the amount of livestock that perished weren't immediately available, but Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall estimated it was in the thousands.

"I think it's going to be absolutely devastating once we get out there and look," Hall said.

Officials are working to stage additional firefighters and equipment to protect communities that might be threatened Wednesday, Fulkerson said.

Winds are expected to increase to as much as 30 mph Wednesday and "will not be conducive to containing the fires," said John Cockrell of the National Weather Service in Amarillo.

However, Cockrell said the humidity will be as much as two times higher than it was Sunday when flames first erupted.

"The fire danger should not be as explosive as it was on Sunday," he said.

There's a slight chance of rain in the weekend forecast.

Firefighters are battling a series of fires stretching through Collinsworth, Wheeler, Carson, Hutchinson, Donley and Gray counties, called the East Amarillo Complex fire. The blaze had scorched some 652,000 acres by Monday night and was 40 percent contained, the Texas Forest Service reported.

Another wildfire in Childress and Cottle counties, called the Buckle L 2 fire, reached 45,000 acres, the Texas Forest Service said. It was 60 percent contained. The Buckle L 2 fire occurred 10 years to the day after a fire at the Buckle L ranch destroyed 17,000 acres, the Forest Service said.

Seven firefighters suffered minor injuries. One firefighter was hospitalized and in stable condition Monday night after a wreck in his fire truck. A ranch hand assisting firefighters was hospitalized with second-degree burns, the Department of Public Safety said.

The total acreage of fires easily eclipsed the 455,000 acres that burned over a span of a couple weeks in December and January, when Gov. Rick Perry declared a state drought disaster.