Texas Burning

Texas has been heavily affected this summer by sweltering heat and severe drought.

We have broken nearly every record in both categories, and Austin, Texas, has endured 80 days with triple digit temperatures this year—another record.

We have also had our share of wildfires which have already cost a tremendous amount in lives, human suffering and material destruction and damage.

Already back in April a fire in the Oak Hill section of Austin, Texas, destroyed 11 homes and damaged more than a dozen other houses and structures.

We live only about ten miles as the crow flies—and as wildfires spread—from the Oak Hill fire area, with a heavily wooded, tinderbox-dry area, between us and the fire. While we could smell the unmistakable odor of burning cedar and other Texas vegetation, fortunately the wind was blowing away from us towards the fire.

Thus, yesterday afternoon when we once more smelled the same burning odor but with the winds, this time, blowing towards us from Oak Hill, we started taking precautions.

This time the fires (notice, plural) were a little farther away from us in the greater Austin area, but as we found out when we turned the local news on, they were numerous and fierce.

This recent report from our local Austin American-Statesman:

In a summer where brush fires have become a near-daily occurrence, firefighting officials said the multiple wildfires that raged across Central Texas on Sunday were the worst the region has seen all year.

Numerous wind-driven fires pushed fire departments to their limits and forced evacuations in Bastrop County, the Steiner Ranch subdivision, Pflugerville, Spicewood and other areas. Scores of residents were left wondering whether they had homes to return to as many of the fires continued to burn Sunday night.

The largest and most destructive fire was in Bastrop County, where a blaze burned 14,000 acres and grew to an estimated 16 miles long by the end of the day, said Mark Stanford, fire chief of the Texas Forest Service.

“It’s catastrophic,” Stanford said of the Bastrop County fire. “It’s a major natural disaster.”

And from the Huffington Post,

A roaring wildfire raced unchecked Monday through rain-starved farm and ranchland in Central Texas, destroying nearly 500 homes during a rapid advance fanned in part by howling winds from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee.

At least 5,000 people were forced from their homes in Bastrop County about 25 miles east of Austin, many of them fearing the worst while spending the night in emergency shelters. Huge clouds of smoke soared into the sky and hung over downtown Bastrop, a town of about 6,000 people along the Colorado River.

The blaze consumed as much as 25,000 acres along a line that stretched for about 16 miles, Texas Forest Service officials said.

It destroyed 476 homes and about 250 firefighters were working around the clock, using bulldozers and pumper trucks against the fire, Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald said

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The new outbreak led Gov. Rick Perry to return home to Texas, cutting short a visit to South Carolina where he was campaigning for the Republican nomination for president. He also canceled a trip to California.

“The wildfire situation in Texas is severe and all necessary state resources are being made available to protect lives and property,” Perry said.

Authorities mobilized ground and air forces to fight the largest of at least 63 fires that broke out in Texas since Sunday as high winds from what was then Tropical Storm Lee swept into Texas, which has endured its worst drought since the 1950s.

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At least two-thirds of the 6,000-acre Bastrop State Park, a popular getaway just east of Bastrop, had been consumed, said Mike Cox, with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. All nonessential workers had been ordered out of the park.

“All I see is a wall of smoke,” Cox said from the park’s front gate. The park is home to several historic rock and stone buildings constructed in the 1930s and 1940s by the Civilian Conservation Corps

And, again, the Statesman:

Firefighters battled a blaze in a part of the Steiner Ranch subdivision northwest of Austin that destroyed at least 25 homes and forced hundreds to evacuate. RM 620 was closed in both directions near the subdivision for hours.

Lisa Rux said the sky over the subdivision changed color that afternoon, turning black as smoke filled the air.

“It’s raining soot,” Rux said.

One of our newer local television stations that has been diligently covering the disaster 24/7, uses the title “Texas Burning.” And, indeed it is

Read more here and here

Image: Austin American-Statesman