Central Texas is on fire!

[JuneBug]

Include Texas in your prayers.

Came home from a trip out to West Texas this evening to hear that 300 homes have burned in the Bastrop area (about 25 mi east of Austin); the fire is thought to be at least 14 miles long by about 5 or 6 miles wide (piney woods and oaks) and not at all contained. The stage for this has been set by no rain in a year, a summer of extreme heat, and high gusting winds from a front that moved through today. High gusting winds are also forecast for tomorrow.

On the west side of Austin, 3000 people have been evacuated from the Steiner Ranch area. People have time to grab pets and leave with the clothes on their backs. There are 5 smaller fires popping up here and there, including the Dripping Springs area. All of Texas is a tinderbox.

As the extreme drought continues, I fear parts of Texas are being slowly deforested; as we drove 150 miles west-southwest, almost all oaks looked extremely stressed or dieing; many cedar trees (junipers) are dieing in big swaths.

We're safe in the middle of town, but this is still so shocking.

[Senior Ninja]

And Perry had asked folks to pray for rain!

[JuneBug]

The Bastrop fire has incinerated 34,000 acres, burned 1,600 homes and is just 75% contained; the Steiner Ranch fire to the west of Austin took out about 30 homes. Fires out in Spicewood took out another 28 homes.

One of our faculty lost his home and photography studio, but had a few minutes to grab things on the way out (including the cat).

The ex-husband of a co-worker had time to grab the dog and run for the car as his back yard exploded in flames.

For such a catastrophic event, loss of human life has been minimal, but there has been a terrible loss of companion animals and livestock.

Many hundreds of acres of the Lost Pines forest and Bastrop State Park are gone, and some of the CCC structures from the 1930 were burned, although the stone part is still standing.

Daily temps are still topping 100 degrees. Although it will drop down into the high 90s this weekend, there is no end in sight for this drought. The drought and fire danger could be with us for a long time to come.

There is a likelihood that severe water rationing is somewhere in our future.

[Shadow Catcher]

And Governor Perry slashed volunteer fire fighting budget by 75% from 30 million to 7 Million and denies climate change.

I remember watching fires around Napa California and seeing the surplus WWII bombers dropping. And I remember my dad talking about folks that didn't bother to clear out brush and trees back from their houses. Fires are an expectation and will be set by lightning strikes and the flora and fauna in California is quite adapted to that as long as small fires are allowed to burn periodically.

It is fortunate that so few have lost their lives it is unfortunate so many have lost their homes.

[teardrop_focus]

And Governor Perry... denies climate change.

With all due respect, here is a very knowledgeable article on this exact matter:

Texas Drought and Global Warming