How big is a 1-million-acre wildfire? Smokehouse Creek Fire could stretch from New York to Philadelphia
If the Smokehouse Creek Fire was burning in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the powerful flames would stretch from Philadelphia to New York City.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire in the Texas Panhandle surpassed 1 million acres burned on Thursday, becoming the largest wildfire in Lone Star State history.
How big is a 1-million-acre wildfire? Here's some context to help understand the scale of this massive blaze.
LARGEST WILDFIRE IN TEXAS HISTORY EXPLODES TO MORE THAN 1 MILLION ACRES IN 4 DAYS ACROSS PANHANDLE
At 1.075 million acres consumed and about 90 miles wide, the fire would nearly cover the length of Delaware from north to south. The wind-driven fire turned deadly in Hutchinson County on Wednesday, where at least one death was reported after dozens of structures were damaged by flames.
If this massive fire were burning elsewhere in the U.S., it would cover multiple major metro areas and regions.
If the Smokehouse Creek Fire was burning in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the powerful flames would stretch from Philadelphia to New York City.
In California, the Smokehouse Creek Fire would cover a large swath of Southern California from San Diego to Los Angeles.
In Florida, the flames would cover a large area known as the I-4 corridor from Tampa to Orlando.
Flames from the largest fire in Texas would cover most of the western banks of Lake Michigan from Chicagoland to Milwaukee.
After a brief respite thanks to snow moving across the West from a winter storm, the Smokehouse Creek Fire is expected to continue to grow later this week once critical fire weather conditions return.
Flames from multiple wildfires burning across the Texas Panhandle are also visible from space. The imagery below shows the rapid growth over 24 hours of the Smokehouse Creek and Windy Deuce fires, both north of Amarillo.
Editor's note: A previous version of the story had an inaccurate quote about the comparison of Delaware to the wildfire.