UPDATE: Wildfire Burning Near Fort Davis; Buildings Destroyed

Firefighters said they were still struggling to control a fast-moving wildfire that entered Fort Davis Saturday evening.

Volunteer firefighter Jim Fowler called the blaze the worst he has seen in 13 years.

“The fire has reached town, has actually gone through Fort Davis at this time. We have lost about five structures that I know of,” Fowler said.

That fire spanned about 25,600 acres and destroyed an estimated 50 homes. High winds continue to hamper efforts to fight it from the air.

According to Texas Forest Service information officer Jan Fulkerson, the fire is still reported at “0 percent containment.”

Fort Davis is about 4 hours south east of El Paso, near Alpine and Marfa.

Evacuations took place at the Fort Davis Estates, a housing subdivision, and 20 people were evacuated from another community, Stanford said.

The fire started in Presidio County on Saturday afternoon and rapidly burned into Jeff Davis County, which has Fort Davis, with a population of about 1,000 people, as its county seat. Stanford said he did not know what caused the blaze.

Stanford said officials were bracing for an unusually difficult day Sunday, with hot, dry weather conditions, including humidity levels in the single digits, which dries out vegetation fueling the fire.

“It’s a disaster and a fire of epic proportions,” Alberto Halpern, a photojournalist for The Big Bend Sentinel said.

He described the fire’s fury in a phone interview with ABC-7 Saturday evening after capturing dramatic images of firefighters battling flames near Marfa.

“We raced out there and there was just a humongous plume of smoke billowing into the air, black smoke,” Halpern said. “(The wind) carried those flames quickly…so fast I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Texas Forest Service reported nine large wildfires burning Sunday. One in rural Stonewall, King and Knox counties has burned more than 71,000 acres.