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UPDATE 7:30 P.M.: Mark Stanford, the fire chief for the Texas Forest Service , said subdivisions have been evacuated there but they have no estimate on what structures have been lost. People are being told to evacuate to the First Baptist Church in Smithville and Bastrop Middle School, Stanford said. In addition, State Highways 71 and 21 in Bastrop County have been closed, Stanford said. Update, 6:48 p.m.: Wildfires have consumed more than 6,000 acres in Bastrop County, and firefighters are still working to get the blazes under control. According to Bastrop Police Department Spokesman Michal Hubbard, hundreds of homes...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry came out swinging today in South Carolina, making his fiercest hit yet on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his record as a job creator. “There is no one going to be sitting on that stage who has the record of job creation that I have,” Perry said at Rep. Tim Scott’s, R-S.C., town hall in Conway, S.C. Monday morning. “There’s going to be some that get up and say ‘Well I’ve created jobs,’ and that’s true. There’s one in particular who’s created jobs all over the world, but while he was the governor of Massachusetts,...

While Bungler-in-Chief Obama was in El Paso “getting in their faces” (i.e., of Republicans) at a stage-managed campaign event, the incompetents of his administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) were doing their best imitation if Jim Carrey’s “Fire Marshall Bill” character in North Texas. As the Plainview Herald reported, a BATF training exercise went awry, and the resulting wildfire scorched another 150 acres of the drought-devastated Texas panhandle. The blazes have been extinguished, but the Herald’s editor writes that the federal fiasco is far from over: Motley County Attorney Tom Edwards said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco...

"Late Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry criticized the White House after learning that his April 16 request for a federal major disaster declaration and additional help had been rejected. Wildfires since November have blackened at least 2.2 million acres and damaged or destroyed more than 400 homes across the state, the governor said. The federal government has already provided Texas with grants for response activities, FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen told The Associated Press in a statement."

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry has appealed to President Barack Obama to declare the state a major disaster area as wildfires strike or threaten all but two of the state's 254 counties. A statement issued Sunday by Perry requested the aid in a letter dispatched Saturday afternoon. Perry's office says more than 7,800 fires across the states have charred more than 1.5 million acres - about 2,400 square miles - while burning 244 homes and threatening more than 8,500 others. .."major disaster declaration" would make the state eligible for help in responding to and recovering from the emergency.

Land between Borger and Skellytown was changed into a desertscape Wednesday by high winds blowing ash and dust, but Blake Moore was still grateful. "I can't say anything but that God smiled on us," Moore said in his home, which was surrounded by charred land and was without electricity. "It's not like a town, my neighbor's three quarters of a mile away, but it is a community, and there's no replacement for good neighbors." Sunday's fire blew past Moore's home. "Those flames came out of the canyon, they were 20 feet tall. It took a minute or 45 seconds to...