A natural gas pipeline exploded in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday, shaking homes, melting window blinds and shooting flames hundreds of feet into the air, authorities said.

Three people were injured in the blast, which occurred at 1 a.m. near Amarillo, and they were taken to an area hospital with burns, said Potter County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Roger Short.

"My home is about 20 miles something away and I could see the flames from my home," Short said. "You could hear the roar of the flames 20 miles away."

Firefighters were able to contain most of the flames by 5:30 a.m. though small grass fires continued to burn, Short said.

Nearby residents were evacuated, and the pipeline's gas was shut off, Short said. One house was destroyed, and several others were damaged in Bushland, about 15 miles west of Amarillo, he said.

"The heat onto the homes, it did a lot of damage. You could see blinds inside the homes that were melted. ... It was very hot," Short said.

Bushland Middle School's principal, Mark Reasor, said about 60 people who were evacuated took shelter at the school for a few hours before returning home before dawn. Gas service had been cut off to nearby homes and Bushland's schools, officials said.

One of those injured was in satisfactory condition at an Amarillo hospital, a spokeswoman there said. Another was treated and released and the third was transferred to a burn center at a Lubbock hospital, she said.

A team of investigators was heading to the pipeline, said Robert Newberry, a spokesman for El Paso Corp. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration also were en route, administration spokeswoman Pat Klinger said. Continued...