Fires

[W.J.Langholz]

These fires in the southern states are getting very serious. If you are intouch with any of our members in the areas of concern please post and update from time to time.....in the meantime a little prayer wouldn't hurt either.

thanks
W.

[cessna170bdriver]

I was gone for the weekend, and came home Monday afternoon to what is now a 13000-acre fire that is only 10% contained, according to officials on the scene. It started Sunday morning as the result a Cessna 210 crashing in a canyon 3-4 miles southeast of the house. Though the wind is calm at the moment, it's been out of the west-northwest, so the fire has been moving away from us, and from what I could see this morning appeared to be mostly under control on our side of the mountain.

[4583C]

Texas is suffering thru the worst fire season in recorded history, over 3.5 million acres since Last November. We have been very fortunate in our immediate area as the largest fire close ( 5 miles) was only last week. I spent about 40 hours on a fire truck from Monday-Thursday. The Possum Kingdom lake fires are less than 40 miles away.
George has fires all around, but was okay last night. Ken Peck has been evacuated and was in a shelter last night. Looked up Ken's address on google maps last night and he has to be very close to the east flank of the Bastrop complex.
The best news I have found has been Austin newpaper and Television websites, and inciweb.org
An excellent collection of pictures can be found here: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011 ... es/100141/

[GAHorn]

If one looks at this map, and zoom's in...one can see where it jumped the Colorado river south of Bastrop (30 miles east of Austin)...then burned up to a straight-line railroad track. To the left/west of that RR track, you will see "Hill Prairie Rd" which crosses the tracks, then to the southeast is "Hubbard St" ...which crosses back alongside the west side of those RR tracks. That "street" , Hubbard, is actually a dirt road,( which is derived from one of our family-names from the 1840's) and is ON our son Tracy's property (130 acres out of the origninal 5K in 1840)) and dead end's in his pasture behind his house.> This conforms to what he said...the fire raged up to the tracks alongside his property and then failed (fortunately) to leap across the RR tracks...otherwise his place would have burned up. He spent the entire night trying to plow a fire-break around his house. > Next day the TX Fire Service used bulldozers to plow up the ground on the fire perimeter to prevent it's spread further ...to confine it to the north/east side of the Colorado River....and so far has worked. > Tracy's pretty tired boy after the last few days, I can only imagine.> > The fire across the river from our property here at Spicewood (30 miles west of Austin) is now only smoldering and the fire 4 miles southeast of us at Spicewood does not threaten us, but burned about 80 homes. It's now "contained".> > Thanks Paul...this is the first map of any accuracy I've seen. Hope Ken's place at Smithville (45 miles east of Austin, on the eastern edge of the large Bastrop fire of 25,000 acres) is OK.> We are fearful our Sister-in-law lost her new home across the river from Tracy in the ColaVista area. We won't know until they let her back into that area. She's been staying at Tracy's. George

Bastrop County Complex Fire Map_9-6-11_1400hrs[1].pdf

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Boy oh boy. sure would like to give some of the 42" of rain we've had in just this last month. 42" is an entire years worth for us. I think we are somewhere around 20" over our yearly average rain fail already and the year isn't over.

Thankfully sea level has to rise 352 feet till I have beach front property.

But I've been wondering which vision would be worse. A Texas fire blowing towards my house or a PA stream set to crest 30 ft over flood stage and my house only 10 foot over flood level.

[n3833v]

Either way you lose. It makes us realize how lucky we are to be able to survive and go on with life. Many have lost their lives due to not realizing the powers of water. Keep all in danger in your prayers.

John

[GAHorn]

Email from Ken Peck:

Thank you guys, I got back in my home Friday. Home and shed are fine. The military cut a line with a dozer across all properties on my side of my road and the firefights stopped the fire there, so the burn ended about a 130 ft. behind my house. I am fortunate and thankful. Ken

[W.J.Langholz]

Looks like some much needed rain is falling in parts of Texas ......hope you all (ya-all) get some.

I hate to say it after such a wet start to this year but we have not seen a drop for over a month and we are dry too.....maybe this weekend.


W.

[flyguy]

I just got in a couple of hours ago from a firefight about five miles east of here. A young man was helping clear some downed tree limbs from his mothers back yard. He hooked onto them with his 4 wheeler and dragged them into this tanglewood forest. In the process he ran over some pine boughs and one of them poked up into the area around thi exhaust pipe near the muffler and ignited. He didn't know it till he was back out in the open. Another man grabbed a garden hose and put out the fire underneath his rig but didn't see the fire he started in the woods. Fortunately for them the fire spotting plane saw the smoke and called it in. We knocked the worst of the fire down then forestry came with the dozers and plowed a fire line around it. We are dead tired but lucky the wind was calm and it only burned 25 acres of underbrush and thankfully, not one structure was harmed.

So heart broken for those around Bastrop and other places that have lost everything - - do keep them in your prayers and consider donations to the Salvation Army and local charities.