Posted: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:00 AM - 14,543 Readers

By: BJ Austin

The weather is giving firefighters on the front lines of the Texas wildfires a bit of a break. KERA's BJ Austin reports.

Daniel Huckaby, with the National Weather Service, says conditions are improved somewhat in parched West Texas, and are much better around the huge, Possum Kingdom fire west of Fort Worth.

Huckaby: We've been in the 50's and 60's much of the day with cloudy skies, even a little drizzle. And the winds have been fairly light. So compared to the really gusty winds, the hot temperatures and really low humidity we've seen in recent days, it's a lot better for containing the fires today.

Huckaby says temperatures will be back up in the 90's this weekend, but he says the humidity will be higher, and that will help. But not as much as a soaking rain, which is NOT in the forecast.

Governor Perry has declared Friday, Saturday and Sunday three days or prayer for rain. The Governor says Texas hasn't had any significant rainfall for almost three months. So far, 1.8 million Texas acres have been burned. State officials say nearly 400 homes have been destroyed.