How big is a 1-million acre wildfire? Smokehouse Creek Fire could stretch from NYC to Philly
This graphic shows the latest Texas wildfire stats. (FOX Weather)
The Smokehouse Creek Fire in the Texas Panhandle surpassed 1 million acres burned on Thursday, becoming the largest wildfire in Lone Star State history.
How big is a 1 million-acre wildfire? Here's some context to help understand the scale of this massive blaze.
LARGEST WILDFIRE IN TEXAS HISTORY EXPLODES TO MORE THAN 1 MILLION ACRES IN 4 DAYS ACROSS PANHANDLE
At 1.075 million acres consumed, the Smokehouse Creek Fire is 180 miles wide – nearly twice the size of Delaware. The wind-driven fire turned deadly in Hutchinson County on Wednesday, where at least one death was reported after dozens of structures were damaged by flames.
If this massive fire were burning elsewhere in the U.S., it would cover multiple major metro areas and regions.
A map showing how the Smokehouse Creek Fire would cover an area from Philadelphia to New York City. (FOX Weather)
If the Smokehouse Creek Fire was burning in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the powerful flames would stretch from Philadelphia to New York City.
A map showing how the Smokehouse Creek Fire would cover Southern California. (FOX Weather)
In California, the Smokehouse Creek Fire would cover a large swath of Southern California from San Diego to Los Angeles.
A map showing how the Smokehouse Creek Fire would cover an area in Florida from Tampa to Orlando. (FOX Weather)
In Florida, the flames would cover a large area known as the I-4 corridor from Tampa to Orlando.
A map showing how the Smokehouse Creek Fire would cover an area from Milwaukee to Chicagoland. (FOX Weather)
Flames from the largest fire in Texas would cover most of the western banks of Lake Michigan from Chicagoland to Milwaukee.
After a brief respite thanks to snow moving across the West from a winter storm, the Smokehouse Creek Fire is expected to continue to grow later this week once critical fire weather conditions return.
Flames from multiple wildfires burning across the Texas Panhandle are also visible from space. The imagery below shows the rapid growth over 24 hours of the Smokehouse Creek and Windy Deuce fires, both north of Amarillo.