(Bloomberg) -- Texas firefighters gained the upper hand over historic wildfires that spurred the evacuation of entire towns, destroyed more than 150 structures and closed highways as dry, gusty conditions that fueled the blazes eased.
The largest cluster of fires, known as the Eastland Complex, was 60% contained as of late Monday about 95 miles (150 kilometers) west of Fort Worth, the Texas A&M Forest Service said in a tweet. The next-biggest blaze, the Big L fire, was 70% under control as of Tuesday morning.
Statewide, the number of active fire clusters stood at six by midday Tuesday compared with nine before dawn, according to the Texas Wildfire Incident Response System.
It may take until late Friday to completely subdue the Eastland fire, state officials said. No full-containment date was provided for the Big L blaze. Fire crews may have to step up efforts in coming days as “high” and “very high” fire-threat conditions spread to cover almost half the state.
“Elevated fire weather concerns will return on Wednesday and again through the weekend,” according to the A&M forest service, one of the state's primary disaster-response agencies. Rising temperatures and high winds “will allow for the return of elevated fire weather concerns generally along and west of I-35.”
Meanwhile, a violent weather system that spawned more than 20 tornadoes near cities such as Austin and Dallas late Monday is now bearing down on Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi.
The storm was crossing the Mississippi River on Tuesday morning, said Ryan Truchelut, chief meteorologist at WeatherTiger LLC.
In Texas, about 47,000 homes and businesses were without power at 11:45 a.m. local time, down from 60,000 three hours earlier, according to PowerOutage.us.
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