- The state's largest blaze has scorched about 14,000 acres
- Two people are killed in an east Texas wildfire
- A fire in Bastrop County has destroyed 300 homes, officials say
- Texas is battling its worst fire season in state history
Bastrop, Texas (CNN) -- An unchecked wildfire southeast of Austin, Texas, destroyed 300 homes, scorched thousands of acres and stretched across a 16-mile area Monday morning, authorities said.
Another blaze in eastern Texas killed a mother and her 18-month-old child when flames engulfed their mobile home Sunday near the town of Gladewater, the Gregg County Sheriff's Department said.
The fires were among more than 20 across the state, the Texas Forest Service said Monday. Officials said winds from Lee, which made landfall as a tropical storm but has weakened to a tropical depression, fanned the flames.
The massive, uncontained fire in Bastrop County, near Austin, was the state's largest on Monday morning. It had burned 14,000 acres, destroyed 300 homes and threatened about 1,000 others, officials with the Forest Service's incident management team reported. About 5,000 residents evacuated as flames approached, officials said.
'There's nothing left of these houses'
Winds whip up Texas wildfires"It was like a storm coming through. You could smell the earth burning," said Julian Ochoa, who was evacuated from a Bastrop subdivision Sunday afternoon.
The 23-year-old grabbed his dog, a toothbrush, his birth certificate and a few pictures as he left. He didn't know Sunday whether his home had survived the blaze.
"All of Bastrop is a giant smoke cloud," he said.
Firefighters planned to use Black Hawk helicopters to douse flames with a mixture of water and fire retardant Monday morning, the incident management team said. Tanker trucks will also be used to battle the blaze.
The fire forced parts of state highways 71 and 21 to shut and additional road closures were expected, fire officials said Sunday.
At least 56 new fires across Texas Sunday burned about 30,000 acres, the state's fire service said.
Fires were reported in at least 17 counties across the state.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning Sunday across much of south, central and eastern Texas. A red flag warning means weather conditions -- mainly high heat, low humidity and strong winds -- pose an extreme fire risk. Sustained winds near 25 mph, with higher gusts, were forecast.
Texas is currently battling its worst fire season in state history. A record 3.5 million acres have burned since the start of the season in November.
CNN's Chris Welch, Stephanie Gallman and Anna Gonzalez contributed to this report.
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