Evacuations ordered as wind-whipped Ross Fire in Texas grows to 80,000 acres - Yahoo News UK

The wind-driven grass fire exploded in size overnight, jumping from roughly 50,000 acres to 80,000 acres while spreading north into Jack County. Road closures accompanied the evacuation orders as crews scrambled to get ahead of a fire moving fast enough to outpace containment efforts. Containment climbed from 5 percent to 12 percent, a sign of some progress but not enough to lift the pressure on residents told to leave.

For people in West Texas and the South Plains, this one hits close. Lubbock sits in the same flat, dry, wind-battered landscape that turns a grass fire into a county-wide emergency almost overnight. The conditions that fed the Ross Fire, dry fuel, sustained winds, and wide-open terrain, are not strangers here. Anyone who remembers fire seasons past knows how fast that math adds up.

The Ross Fire is part of a broader wave of wildfires burning across the West and Northwest. At the same time, fire crews in Nevada were battling a separate blaze near Reno that destroyed or damaged more than 50 homes and pushed 42,000 people out of their neighborhoods.

Two major fires, two states, and neither one fully under control yet.