GRAHAM, Texas — A day after losing one of their own, firefighters returned to the front lines Saturday to battle wildfires sweeping across hundreds of thousands of acres in Texas that have destroyed dozens of homes.

Strong winds and drought-stricken grasses and shrubs are fueling the fires that forced hundreds of evacuations, including an entire town, and destroyed at least 60 homes on Friday.

Some of the fires have been burning for a week or more, including three in West Texas that have charred a combined 400,000 acres.

Volunteer firefighter Gregory M. Simmons, 51, died while battling a 3,000-acre blaze Friday afternoon near Eastland, a town about 130 miles west of Dallas, Eastland Mayor Mark Pipkin said. Simmons had been a firefighter for two decades, including 11 years in Eastland, the mayor said.

“Apparently he was overcome by smoke, fell in a ditch and was consumed” by the fire, said Justice of the Peace James King, who pronounced Simmons dead at the scene along a rural road.

No other injuries have been reported.

A blaze destroyed about 30 homes and left a thick gray haze across the sky as it burned about 20,000 acres around Possum Kingdom Lake, a popular recreation spot about 120 miles west of Dallas. By nightfall, a deep red glow was hovering on the horizon as thick billows of smoke were illuminated by the flames.

Officials closed the surrounding state park and evacuated campsites earlier Friday, fearing that the fire would block off the only access roads to the wooded area.

“The fire, it’s a bad one,” Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Rob McCorkle said. “This is pretty unusual to have this many fires going across the state at the time.”

Three large fires burning in Wichita County, about 150 miles northwest of Dallas near the Oklahoma border, had destroyed about 20 homes in the Iowa Park area. Eight more were lost in Wichita Falls, where folks in surrounding communities were being told to stay alert to the fast-changing situation.

“There’s just a lot of hoping that nothing else happens,” said Barry Levy, a Wichita Falls spokesman.