Weary Crews Battle Blazes

Search Is On For Victims In Devastated Texas Towns

(CBS/AP)  Recovery teams in central Texas have been searching for victims in towns devastated by recent grass fires.

Among them were Kokomo and Cross Plains, where more than 90 homes and a church were destroyed last week.

In the town of Ringgold, everyone is accounted for, but the damage is extensive. Some 50 homes and 40,000 acres were charred as wind swept the fire 13 miles from Ringgold to Nocona.

Carol Ezzell, who lives in Ringgold, says destruction of the town "didn't take 30 minutes." All but seven buildings were lost on Main Street.

In Oklahoma City, a fire official says they consider the entire city a target for grass fires. But in southeastern New Mexico, crews mopping up four fires are getting help from calmer weather

Officials warned that the dry, windy weather and extreme fire danger would continue.

"We've had high temperatures, low humidity and high winds, and that causes, literally, a perfect storm," Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry said.

"We don't know where we will be today," Oklahoma City Fire Department Maj. Brian Stanaland said Monday morning. "At this point, we consider the whole city a target for grass fires."

A fire broke out close to downtown Oklahoma City Sunday night.

"As I looked across I could see the flames 30 feet in the air above our eye level, which we're on a hilltop," Oklahoma City resident Howard Lusk told CBS News The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler. "I said 'Get ready, we may have to leave here.'"

Lusk and his wife, Debra, did have to leave and flames later consumed their home.

Computer models Monday showed no rain in the foreseeable future, said Jesse Moore, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth. He said the region's last appreciable rain was about a quarter-inch on Dec. 20.

"The wind may die down a little bit today, but then it's going to start kicking up again during the middle of the week, so conditions are still going to be ripe for more fires," said CBS News meteorologist George Cullen. "And it's going to be extremely warm, temperatures at least 15 to 20 degrees above normal levels."

The biggest fire in Texas on Monday was a 25-mile-long blaze that had blackened 22,400 acres in Eastland County, about 125 miles west of Dallas. State officials were dispatching more helicopters and airplanes to battle that blaze near the small towns of Carbon, Gorman and Desdemona, said Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Traci Weaver.

Firefighters were close to encircling the fire Monday, but were concerned that an expected shift in wind would complicate efforts, Weaver said.

Fire survey crews flying over other sections of northern and western Texas on Sunday reported the tiny communities of Ringgold and Kokomo, which together were home to about 125 people, had essentially been wiped out by flames, Weaver said.

A fire that started not to far from Ringgold, fanned by the gusty winds, very quickly completely destroyed that town, reports CBS Radio News reporter Mark Johnson. The residents were able to evacuate, but there's about 50 homes and about 35 to 37 of them were destroyed.

Crews planned to conduct a house-to-house search Monday for casualties in the two towns, as well as in Cross Plains, about 25 miles west of Carbon, where more than 90 homes and a church were destroyed by flames last week. In all, four deaths were reported last week in Texas and Oklahoma.

Dozens of fires blackened the Oklahoma landscape as wind gusted to 50 mph, including 25 blazes within Oklahoma City that forced the evacuations of two neighborhoods. Four homes were destroyed, Stanaland said Monday.

Altogether, dozens of wildfires swept across more than 5,000 acres of Oklahoma and destroyed at least a dozen homes on Sunday, said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Emergency Management.

Since Nov. 1, Oklahoma wildfires have covered more than 285,000 acres and destroyed 200 buildings, said Michelle Finch, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department's forestry division.

"This has been an unprecedented year for fires," Finch said. Fire season in Oklahoma usually begins around Feb. 15 and lasts until April 15, but this past year the fires began in June and have gotten progressively worse, Finch said.

Just across the Texas state line in New Mexico, crews were mopping up Monday after four fires in the Hobbs area that had blackened more than 65,000 acres of grassland and burned more than a dozen houses and barns.