Live Updates: Smokehouse Creek Fire grows rapidly in Texas

The ongoing wildfires have been largely driven by high winds and dry air. And high wind warnings and red flag warnings remain in effect in the region until 8 p.m. local time.

“The Texas A&M Forest Service reports that several large wildfires ignited yesterday under warm, dry, and windy conditions across the Texas Panhandle,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “Strong forecasted winds will likely impact these wildfires, causing them to grow larger. There is a possibility for wildfire activity to occur where an abundant amount of dormant grasses are present on the landscape in areas near and around them, including the Panhandle, South Plains, Texoma, and Permian Basin regions.”

Parts of East Texas are also under increased wildfire risk, he said.

Now, there’s a mix of good and bad news coming up.

A cold front that’s pushing through the area Tuesday evening will bring cooler air and shift winds. While winds may grow weaker, they may also help spread the flames in a different direction — they’ve so far been spreading eastward, and the wind change could help lead them southward.

“A cold front is rushing down from the north and for firefighters, this is a dangerous game because the wind has been out of the west all day, now the wind is out of the north,” CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers said Tuesday. “The firefighters, the personnel, they have to stay out of the way of that wind shift.”

But the cool air also brings good news: the cold air mass pushing into the region has a much higher relative humidity than the dry air that has been feeding the fires Tuesday, which is going to limit the fire risk as the night into Wednesday gets colder.

That fire-weather threat will be much lower Wednesday, and though some gusty winds and patches of air could combine to cause concerns in southern Texas as well, the threat is expected to be brief and not widespread.