STERLING, Colo. – The Latest on wildfires burning across the country's midsection (all times local):
8:25 a.m.
Authorities say as many as four firefighters have been hurt battling fires in the Texas Panhandle.
Texas A&M Forest Service spokesman Phillip Truitt says the four were hurt Monday as one fire intensified near Amarillo and another larger one spread in the far northeast corner of the Panhandle near the Oklahoma border.
Truitt said Tuesday that one of the firefighters injured worked for Pantex, the nuclear facility northeast of Amarillo, and the other for a volunteer department in the region. He provided no details on the nature of their injuries.
It was not immediately clear how the other firefighters were hurt or the extent of their injuries.
Truitt says the larger fire covers some 156 square miles near the Oklahoma border.
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6:40 a.m.
Wildfires burning in Colorado, Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma have forced evacuations and destroyed several buildings.
A pair of fires in the Texas Panhandle burned more than 100 square miles. One of the blazes near Amarillo threatened about 150 homes.
In Colorado, a fire in rural Logan County burned more than 45 square miles, forced the evacuation of three schools and threatened as many as 900 homes. The Logan County Emergency Management Office said at least four structures, including three homes, were destroyed.
In Kansas, wind-blown fires, some originating in Oklahoma, forced the evacuations of several small towns and the closure of some roads, including a couple of short stretches of Interstate 70. Crews used two Black Hawk helicopters Monday to dump water on some of the Kansas fires.
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