The Texas wildfires raging just east of Austin have burned at least 500 homes, scorched thousands of acres and claimed at least two lives.
Dozens of fires, fueled by high winds and drought conditions, have led to a wall of smoke of flames 16 miles long and four miles wide. More than 5,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes. Five shelters have been set up across the affected area.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry set aside his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination to focus attention on the troubles on the emergency at home. He cut short a campaign stop in South Carolina to return to Texas Monday.
"I'll be real honest with you I'm not paying any attention to politics right now," Perry said. "There's plenty of time to take care of that. People's lives and their possessions are in danger. That's substantially more important."
"I have seen a number of big fires in my life ... this one is as mean looking as I've ever seen," he added.
A 20-year-old woman and her child died in their trailer home Sunday near Gladewater, Texas when they were unable to escape one rapidly expanding fire.
"It's a monster, and it's zero percent contained," said Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Jan Amen.
Texas Wildfires Burn 500 Homes, Thousands of Acres
Watch Video Texas Wildfire Containment a 'Long-Time Deal'
Watch Video The massive wildfire began Sunday afternoon in Bastrop County and has so far blackened more than 14,000 acres, caused over 5,000 people to evacuate and damaged or destroyed at least 300 homes, according to fire officials.
U.S. Forest Service official Mike Ferris said that weather patterns are to blame for Bastrop County's raging fires.
"The weather today is at its worst. We had a red flag warning issued this morning for strong gusty winds from anywhere from 15 to 30 mile per hour, in addition to reduced or lowered humidities," he said.
The emergency is not limited to the one fire about 30 miles east of Austin. Roughly 35 other fires are actively burning across this drought-stricken state.
Many Texans prayed Tropical Lee would bring rain, but instead only gusty winds made Texas' most active fire season ever that much worse. The state is experiencing its worst drought since the 1950s.
Since Sunday, 251 of Texas' 254 counties were under outdoor burn bans. Many residents were forced to flee quickly with the fire right on their doorstep.
"While we were grabbing our things you could feel the heat of the fire and there was smoke in our house already," said one woman who was forced to evacuate. "We just grabbed our dog and packed as much stuff in our car as we could."
One of the homes that has been destroyed belongs to Dan Hugo, a veteran who returned from war less than a month ago. He came home to find his house in ruins. He and his family, along with hundreds of others, spent most of Labor Day housed in a shelter.
Tanya Henson, another evacuee, says that not knowing what is going to happen to her is the worst aspect of the emergency.
"It's just nerve-racking, 'cause we don't know if we got a home to go home to or not," Henson told ABC News.
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