Wildfire in Randall County, Texas

The Hunggate fire was a started on May 14th due to dry lightning from a thunderstorm. The gusty winds from the storms and very dry grasses allowed for the fire to spread quickly. Multiple other lightning fires occurred that day, likely leading to limited recourses being available. Neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city of Canyon, TX were threatened. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for about 350 homes, but firefighters were able to hold the lines. However, there were still a few homes that were not able to escape the fire and were lost, along with several out houses, and the railroad bridge on the south side of Canyon. The fire is currently 95% contained as of May 19th and is noted to have burned 34,131 acres, but that's due to it being merged with the Chocolate Chip Fire.

A prolonged hot and dry period was set up for the Panhandles in mid May. And with the lack of significant rainfall to help transition the grasses from cured to green, the fuels were well above the 90th percentile in dryness. While it's not uncommon for a high based storm or two to occur west of the dryline and create dry thunderstorms, on May 14th it was certainly more scattered to nearly widespread storms that occurred. Several lightning ignitions occurred, and given that the storms had severe dry microbursts associated, the fires that ignited would spread quickly. Thereafter the Panhandles would go through several consecutive days of critical to extremely critical conditions. And the issues of any new starts, as well as active fires that ignited on May 14th would take another run were of high concern. Overall 20 wildfires ranging from over 34,000 acres to some as small as a few acres would ignite in the TX/OK Panhandle between the 14th and the 18th.