Texas wildfires torched 1,000 homes in past week

Updated at 6:10 p.m. ET

AUSTIN, Texas - A massive wildfire that destroyed as many as 600 homes in Central Texas has killed two people, authorities said Tuesday.

Bastrop County Sheriff Terry Pickering said he had no details about the victims, including when or how they died.

In all, more than 1,000 homes have been destroyed in at least 57 wildfires across rain-starved Texas, most of them in one devastating blaze close to Austin that is still raging out of control, officials said Tuesday.

Gov. Rick Perry, who cut short a presidential campaign trip to South Carolina on Monday to return to help oversee firefighting efforts in Texas, toured a blackened area near Bastrop, about 25 miles from Austin, where a fast-moving blaze destroyed nearly 600 homes on Monday.

Perry told CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday that he doesn't know whether he will participate in the first Republican debate since he entered the raced for president while his state continues to battle persistent wildfires.

But his campaign spokesman, Mark Miner, said in an email later Tuesday that "the governor plans on being at the debate."

Texas wildfire destroys nearly 500 homes
Video: Winds whip up Texas wildfires
Perry mum on GOP debate as Texas wildfires rage

At a news conference afterward, he marveled at the destruction and pointing out that more than 100,000 acres in the drought-stricken state had burned over the past week, and that more than 3.5 million acres -- an area roughly the size of Connecticut -- had burned since December.

"Pretty powerful visuals of individuals who lost everything," Perry said. "The magnitude of these losses are pretty stunning."

Some residents said they were surprised by how quickly the blaze engulfed their neighborhoods.

"We were watching TV and my brother-in-law said to come and see this," Dave Wilhelm, 38, who lives just east of Bastrop said. "All I saw was a fireball and some smoke. All of a sudden: Boom! We looked up and left."

Wilhelm returned Tuesday to find his neighbor's house and three vehicles gone, some of his own children's backyard toys destroyed but their house spared.

"Some stuff is smoldering on the lot behind us. Inside of the house, we smell like a campfire. We're definitely very lucky."

The fire had scorched some 30,000 acres by Tuesday, and the Texas Forest Service said crews were still trying to contain it. State emergency management chief Nim Kidd said that the fire was the most destructive fire of the year in Texas, and that the number of homes destroyed will likely go up, once the hardest-hit areas are assessed.

There's been no significant rainfall over central Texas for a year, said CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds, and today the consequences of that are being seen in Bastrop and other areas.

Tom Boggus, director of the Texas Forest Service, told "Early Show" anchor Erica Hill that as of Tuesday morning "There's no containment right now."

"We've been in a defensive mode for a couple of days now, and really all you can do is get people out of the way, protect homes where you can, and make sure our firefighters are safe," Boggus told Hill. "But today, the winds have died down so we can probably be much more aggressive, and we hopefully can get some containment on all these fires in the Austin area."

Boggus said 90 percent of wildfires are caused by people - directly, or through the electricity used by us. Texans are aware of the fire dangers.

"People get it, they understand it," he said. "Especially now it's heightened with the news media ... people understand to be very, very careful. And with the high winds people understood how dangerous and how volatile this state is.

(Watch at left)

The blaze was one of dozens that started Sunday in Texas and that were fed by strong wind gusts caused by Tropical Storm Lee. Forestry officials said that Tuesday's calmer winds would help firefighting efforts.

Social media relief efforts in Central Texas grow
Texas Forest Service: Wildfire information
Incident Information System

"It's encouraging we don't have winds right now, not like yesterday," Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Victoria Koenig said

Even with the encouraging conditions, Koenig said it was a "tough, tough fire" that was raging through rugged terrain, including a ridge of hills.

"You can still see the hills glowing quite a bit," she said.

At least 5,000 people were forced from their homes in Bastrop County, and about 400 were in emergency shelters, officials said Monday. School and school-related activities were canceled Tuesday.

In Bastrop, a town of about 6,000 people along the Colorado River, huge clouds of smoke soared into the sky and hung over downtown Monday. When winds picked up, flames flared over the tops of trees. Helicopters and planes loaded with water flew overhead, and firefighters along a state highway outside the city converged around homes catching fire.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, and officials said they knew of no residents trapped in their homes.

Perry, a tea party favorite who has made a political career of railing against government spending, said he expects federal assistance with the wildfires. He also expressed frustration that equipment at Fort Hood, including bulldozers and equipment that can cut deep fissures in the earth, are not already in use.

"Whenever you've got people hurting, when you've got lives that are in danger, in particular, I really don't care who the asset belongs to," Perry said. "If it's sitting in some yard somewhere and not helping become part of the solution, that's a problem."

Several other states were also fighting wildfires on Tuesday.

That fire started Sunday when a small plane crashed in the remote area. At least two people are confirmed dead in the crash.

The fire had destroyed 12 homes and 18 outbuildings and is about 10 percent contained, Kern County Fire Department spokesman Victor Cruz said.

And in northwestern Louisiana, wildfires had burned at least 500 acres and three homes near the town of Ida and forced the evacuation of dozens of residents.

Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator said the fires started over the weekend in northern Caddo Parish. Firefighting crews were dispatched from parish fire districts, nearby towns and cities and eastern Texas and southern Arkansas.

No injuries were reported.