Officials triple number of homes charred in Texas fire

* Bastrop county hardest hit by recent fires

* More than three dozen fires burning across Texas

By Karen Brooks

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Some 1,386 homes have been destroyed in a monstrous fire burning for the past five days southeast of Austin, Texas, that has been only 30 percent contained, county officials said on Thursday.

The devastating new number -- nearly triple what officials had said earlier in the week and more than any blaze in Texas history-- is the county's "best estimate" of the 35,000-acre fire that's been ripping through this rural, historic community since Sunday, said Bastrop County Emergency Coordinator Mike Fisher.

"This is based on everything we had in (the count) before, plus a house-by-house and driveway by driveway count we did last night," Fisher said.

Officials said that number is likely to increase as the count continues.

The blaze has killed two people, forced the evacuation of 5,000, officials said.

The Bastrop County fire is the biggest, but it is far from the only wildfire burning in Texas right now. Forest service officials say more than three dozen fires are burning across the state, consuming 120,000 acres and driving thousands of people from their homes.

More than 3.6 million acres in Texas have been scorched by wildfires since November, fed by a continuing drought that has caused more than $5 billion in damage to the state's agricultural industry and that shows no sign of easing.

Bastrop County, with a population around 75,000 and an average income of $27,499 a year per resident, has been particularly hard hit. The region has been declared a federal disaster area and officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been on the ground since Tuesday doing damage assessments.

County Judge Ronnie McDonald warned residents not to return to their neighborhoods until re-entry plans were announced later Thursday.

The footprint of the fire, according to the Texas Forest Service, is a massive 20 miles by 24 miles, and the flames have turned entire neighborhoods into blackened moonscapes of burned out vehicles and crusts that used to be homes.

"We had a lovely home, and we had a nice neighborhood, and it's gone. We just have to accept that," said Betty Porterfield, who was anxiously scouring lists of destroyed homes posted at a Bastrop area shelter.

Another fast moving fire started Wednesday night on Camp Stanley, a military training ground northwest of San Antonio, quickly jumped the fence and forced evacuations in the upscale suburb of Fair Oaks Ranch.

Residents were allowed to return to their homes when helicopters dumped fire retardant on the fires, containing them. But Bexar County Fire Marshal Ross Coleman says one of the things stretching fire departments thin is the need to keep crews on the scene of extinguished fires, to make sure they do not flare up again.

Coleman said the fire Wednesday night was a rekindle of a previous fire which had been extinguished the night before.

An impressive array of aircraft has been called in to fight the fires, including six heavy air tankers, three 1500 gallon scoopers, 15 single engine air tankers, 12 helicopters, and 12 aerial supervision aircraft.

Eight Blackhawk and three Chinook helicopters from the Texas National Guard have been providing aerial support. Ten Tanker, a retrofitted DC-10 aircraft which can dump 12,000 gallons of flame retardant or water at a pass will be activated for use in Texas blazes on Friday.

So far, four people have died in fires the broke out across the state over the Labor Day weekend , including a mother and infant daughter who died in northeast Texas on Sunday. (Additional reporting by Jim Forsyth; Editing by Greg McCune and Jackie Frank)