Louisiana governor Bobby Jindall declared a state of emergency and called for urgent help to prevent fragile wetlands and vital fishing communities along from pollution on a massive scale.

The wind started to strengthen and blow the 600-square-mile (1,550-square-kilometer) slick directly onto the coast, where a rich variety of wildlife were at risk in the maze of marshes that amounts to 40 percent of the US wetlands.

"Satellite imagery from this morning indicates the western edge of the oil is 7-8 miles from the (Mississippi) Delta," the US government's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

"Shoreline impacts become increasingly likely later in the day and into Friday with the strengthening onshore winds."

Despite frantic efforts to stave off an environmental catastrophe many of those dependent on the region's vital fisheries and nature reserves had already given up hope due to strong onshore squalls forecast for several days to come.

"It is a question of when, not if, the oil is going to come on shore," Doug Helton, NOAA's incident operations coordinator, told AFP.

Brent Roy, who charters fishing boats off the coast, said the rough seas expected Thursday night through Saturday would make it nigh on impossible that rescue teams would be able to contain the spill off shore.

"As it gets into the wildlife management area it is going to kill us. This wind is going to push it right on us," he told AFP, after returning to the small coastal hub of Venice from the Pass a Loutre nature reserve.

"It's the worst case scenario for shrimpers, oyster harvesters, crabbers -- all the commercial fisherman," Roy said. "You could definitely smell it in the air. There were a lot of helicopters in the air and workboats with booms."

Jindal listed at least 10 wildlife refuges in Louisiana and Mississippi in the direct path of the oil that are likely to be impacted, warning that billions of dollars in coastal restoration projects could be wasted.

As mile upon mile of protective inflatable booms were frantically lain along the coast, the White House pledged "all available resources," including the military, to avoid a catastrophe.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the decision to designate the slick a disaster of "national significance" would allow clean-up equipment and resources from across the United States to be used.

The increased government urgency came after officials revealed late Wednesday that the slick was estimated to be growing five times faster than previously thought following the discovery of a new, third leak.

Oil was gushing unabated from near the Deepwater Horizon platform, which sank April 22, two days after a huge explosion that killed 11 workers.

Some 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, of oil a day were now said to be streaming from the riser pipe that linked the sunken rig to the wellhead.

Crews conducted a controlled "trial" burn Wednesday of one of the thickest parts of the slick, but such operations were suspended indefinitely as the heavier winds blew in.

The accident has not disrupted offshore energy operations in the Gulf, which account for 30 percent of all US oil production and 11 percent of domestic gas production.

British energy giant BP, which leased the semi-submersible rig from Houston-based contractor Transocean, has been operating four robotic submarines to try and cap the ruptured well on the seabed some 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below the surface.

Crews have failed so far to fully activate a giant 450-tonne valve system, called a blowout preventer, that should have shut off the oil as soon as the disaster happened.

As a back-up, engineers were constructing a giant dome that could be placed over the leaks to trap the oil, allowing it to be pumped up to container ships on the surface.

Should the latest figures for the spill be accurate, nearly 1.5 million gallons of crude could have already spewed into the Gulf.

By comparison, some 11 million gallons of crude spilled from the Exxon Valdez into Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989.

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