DUMAS, TEXAS (AP) -- Firefighters from across the state have gathered to pay respects to a fireman who was fatally burned while battling one of dozens of wildfires that have scorched more than a million acres in Texas this month.

Friends and relatives also filled a church in the Texas Panhandle town of Dumas on Monday and remembered 49-year-old Elias (eh-LEE'-us) Macias Jaquez (HAH'-kez) as a good friend and good firefighter who will be missed.

Jaquez was a Mexican-born meat-packing plant worker and volunteer firefighter in nearby Cactus. He died last week at a Lubbock hospital 11 days after he was critically injured battling a wildfire near Dumas, about 40 miles north of Amarillo.

After the Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Jaquez was to be buried at Northlawn Memorial Gardens.

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