Dangerous and severe fire weather conditions remain Wednesday after more than a dozen new wildfires burned tens of thousands of acres in the Plains amid dry conditions and strong winds Tuesday, forcing evacuations.
The Ranger Road fire was the largest and is now a major fire. The fire has exploded in size, burning at least 145,000 acres in Oklahoma and Kansas since it started early Tuesday afternoon. It’s about the same size as Chicago.
Most of that extreme increase occurred in just eight hours, during which time fires burned an area equivalent to three to four football fields every second on average. The fire was 0% contained as of Wednesday morning, according to the Oklahoma State Forest Service.
The Ranger Road Fire started in Beaver County, Oklahoma, and then spread approximately 90 miles into southern Kansas. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate in Inglewood and Ashland, Kansas, on Tuesday, according to CNN affiliate KAKE.
Another wildfire in Woodward, Oklahoma, a city of about 12,000 residents in the northwestern part of the state, forced the evacuation of thousands of people in the city’s southwest quadrant, Woodward County Emergency Manager Matt Rechenbauer told CNN affiliate KOCO. Most of those evacuation orders were lifted by late Tuesday.
The fire also prompted evacuations at Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s Woodward Campus, which will remain closed until further notice, the school told X.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday declared a state of disaster emergency for Beaver and Woodward counties in Texas to activate the state’s emergency management resources. Gov. Stitt had also requested aviation assets from Texas to help fight the fire, but the winds were too strong to fly, the governor told CNN affiliate KOCO on Tuesday.
“I have directed all the forestry assets in the eastern part of the state that have already left, most of which have already arrived. I just directed them to set up every fire hose that we have and every bulldozer that we have and make sure those lines are ready,” he said.
Several other dangerous fires have burned thousands of acres each in the Plains and Rockies since Tuesday, including two in the Texas Panhandle called the Lavender Fire and the Eight-Ball Fire.
UPDATE: #8BallFire in Armstrong County is estimated at 7,000 acres and 10% contained. Crews continue to construct containment lines. Firefighters monitor the fire at night. pic.twitter.com/9IGmCx46t9
— Incident Information – Texas A&M Forest Service (@AllHazardsTFS) February 18, 2026
The risk of extreme fire activity on Wednesday was slightly lower than on Tuesday, when a red flag for “particularly hazardous conditions” was in place, but not by much.
On Tuesday, more than 750,000 people in the Plains region experienced Level 3 of extremely dangerous fire weather conditions. No areas were below this level Wednesday morning, but the Storm Prediction Center warned that fire weather conditions could approach some locations in the Level 2/3 (or critical) region.
Red flag warnings were issued Wednesday for more than 5 million people from New Mexico and Texas to Colorado and Kansas.
Dry air and sustained winds of 20 mph, with stronger gusts, will continue Wednesday into Thursday. Windy conditions will continue to fuel fire growth through dry fuel from grass and other tinder, especially in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
Similar wildfires have caused catastrophic damage in the past, including the 2024 Smokehouse Creek Fire in the Texas Panhandle, which became the state’s largest wildfire, destroying more than 500 structures.
This dangerous setting has been brewing all winter. About 200 locations in the West, Rocky Mountains and parts of the Plains are experiencing their warmest winter on record, according to NOAA data. This includes areas in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, which have seen some of the worst fires this week.
Continuous heat and lower-than-normal precipitation caused the region’s soils to become dry to drought, producing crunchy fuel. This situation is likely to become more common as the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution.
Strong winds on Tuesday also kicked up dust and dirt, making travel dangerous. In Colorado, at least five people were killed in a pileup accident in “pitch black” conditions with poor visibility, the State Patrol said.
The crash on Interstate 25 south of Pueblo, Colorado, involved more than 30 vehicles and occurred after winds gusted up to 101 mph.
“Visibility was almost zero,” Colorado State Police Maj. Brian Lyons said, explaining that the winds were moving very quickly.
At least 29 people were taken to hospitals with mild to moderate injuries, and “several” were seriously injured, the Colorado State Patrol said. One of the men later died from his injuries, according to the State Patrol.
