Heat wave breaking.... wildfires starting.

Last night on Facebook some citizens from the area were begging for volunteers to come help them...anybody...any wildfire fighting skills. They asked people to spread the word to others if they couldn't personally come help.

Can't attest to the validity of the request since it was Facebook and almost anything gets posted and reposted and reposted there.

I am following two facebook fire threads. I just saw that the smoke is way down in one fire. If the wind stays down, they may get the better of it.

so far three of my friends have lost their homes.

my aunt in del valle is watching the bastrop fire from her back yard.

this is ugly.

http://www.kvue.com/video/featured-videos/Volunteer-firefighters-in-Texas-struggle-with-financial-crisis-118510059.html

And that article was written in March. It is very right on for the current situation.

I am so sorry to hear that and I hope no one else has to suffer through losing
their home.

I think about a thousand homes were destroyed so far.

What's the terrain like, the vegetative cover in those areas, Edgar? Everyone is pretty familiar with CA wildfires but TX, not so much.

Most everything I have seen is in pine forests.

Excuse my ignorance of the vegetative cover, Edgar, but are these as thick as a, say, Colorado forest or is the tree placement much more sparse? I read that a hurricane from last year made for a lot of growth - undergrowth I assume, which has died due to the drought. Is this a large part of what's fueling these fires?

this is almost half of the city of bastrop -




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Looks like a dust storm from the Dirty Thirties.

Mother nature is trying to reset herself here.

No water, large fires... things need to burn down. Quade says , and I agree.. that this is going to be the next desert area. Water levels are less and less, heat higher and higher , ..sheesh . It is already a lot of scrub brush, rocks and minimal soil. There are places that are lush here yes.. but around the hill country is not one of them.

This reminds me of the Oakland Hills fires...same type of fast-moving tree bombs going up in wind-fanned flames. There is no way that many creatures who haven't burrowed underground can move fast enough to survive it.

My wife said that one of the fires was started by a barbecue pit some dummy was pulling down the road. Don't know which fire it was. I forgot even how many are burning.

this is what it is getting right now

Just today I was heading to the duval/mopac area, and a spontaneous fire broke out just blocks from me, causing the entire area to lose all water pressure .

I dont know what it was from, but i remember driving on the over pass as i was approaching and seeing red flames and tons of smoke.
It was a very odd experience.

Another broke out near 2222 just down the street from where I live.
I am hearing that some of these little ones are breaking out from simple things like cigarettes because of the wind speed . What would not have caused an issue before is igniting everything almost immediately.

The drought is the real culprit, mostly. Here are some images of the fire for those who have not seen enough already, on Channel 11's news site. http://www.khou.com/

We have plenty of tall pines around here. I have been hoping for months that nothing crazy happens.

I've been watching this for days and wondering how you three Austin folk are doing. Is your air quality affected at all? That is so scary - Shewolf - the pic you posted - awful! Those poor 1500 families who lost their homes!