Texas fires scorch homes, threaten to spread

Calmer winds on Monday allowed an airborne assault on West Texas wildfires that destroyed dozens of homes and a dog kennel and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate. The 50-mile-per-hour winds whipping up the blazes that scorched 120,000 acres of bone-dry grasslands subsided and helicopters and tanker planes supported firefighters on the ground employing trucks and bulldozers. But it may take days to gain control of the several separate fires, authorities said.