{"id":17004,"date":"2012-08-27T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=17004"},"modified":"2012-08-30T14:58:49","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T19:58:49","slug":"looking-back-on-the-labor-day-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/08\/27\/looking-back-on-the-labor-day-wildfires\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back on the Labor Day Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_17005\"  class=\"wp-caption module image center\" style=\"max-width: 594px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/08\/27\/looking-back-on-the-labor-day-wildfires\/wildfires-devastate-drought-stricken-central-texas-10\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17005\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17005\" title=\"Wildfires Devastate Drought-Stricken Central Texas\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/08\/124002092.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/08\/124002092.jpg 594w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/08\/124002092-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Erich Schlegel\/Getty Images)<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Coppell firefighter Lin Whetstine walks through hot spots with a chain saw as on September 7, 2011 in Bastrop, Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>No Texan needs reminding of just how bad last year was. For months, Central Texas received only trace amounts of rain. It was the driest&#8211; and hottest &#8212; summer in the area\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>How a &#8216;Perfect Storm&#8217; Led to the Worst Fires in Texas History\/audio]<\/p>\n<p>Chris Barron, Executive Director of the Fireman\u2019s and Fire Marshals Association of Texas, remembers that the 2011 wildfire season got off to an\u00a0ominous\u00a0start with the Possum Kingdom Lake fire in March.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I\u2019ll never forget talking to Chief Steve Purdue of the Mineral Wells Fire Department,&#8221; Barrons says. &#8220;And I asked him what he\u2019s up to. And his immediate response was, \u2018I\u2019ve got fire all around me, I gotta talk to you later.\u2019 And that kind of set the tone for the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the season was a scorcher. As the summer of 2011 wore on, temperatures broke records and the earth cracked. Vegetation died.<\/p>\n<p>Then in the week before Labor Day, officials began to caution that Central Texas was beginning to look like a powder keg.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/27\/racing-to-salvage-millions-of-dead-trees-in-texas\/\">The Race to Salvage Millions of Dead Trees in\u00a0Texas<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/23\/after-bastrop-fires-a-season-of-reflection-and-rebuilding\/\">After Bastrop Fires, a Season of Reflection and Rebuilding<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/06\/a-generation-of-texas-farmers-lost-to-the-drought\/\">A Generation of Texas Farmers and Ranchers, Lost to the Drought<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/11\/dont-come-and-take-it-texas-vs-air-force-over-c-130s\/\">(Don\u2019t) Come and Take It: Texas vs. Air Force over C-130s<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/119835727-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>A tropical storm off the coast of Louisiana began blowing high winds into the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe conditons, I mean you almost can\u2019t make that up,&#8221; remembers\u00a0Robert Abbott, Assistant Fire Chief with Lake Travis Fire and Rescue.\u00a0\u201cThe fires that start like that are historic, obviously. They\u2019re not that common here in Central Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, September fourth, the fires came. Nearly sixty of them on that day alone.\u00a0But while extreme heat and devastating drought have held much of the blame for the fires, there\u2019s a bigger picture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything was lining up for the perfect storm,&#8221; says Barron with the Fire Marshalls Association. &#8220;And not only the perfect storm in the fact of the weather, but aslo the fact that it was the perfect storm for the fire service, because our funding for fire protection drastically got cut last year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barron says that one of the state\u2019s fire grant programs went from 25 million to just 7 million dollars in one year. State and local firefighters found themselves cash-strapped and understaffed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019m listening to all these fires going on at the same time, and they\u2019re calling me, asking for air resources or other resources from across the states,&#8221; Barron recalls. &#8220;And I call our state coordinator and I said, hey look I need a strike team from wherever you can get it from.\u00a0The firefighter calls me back and he says I\u2019ll do the best I can, but they\u2019re pretty much strapped for resources at this point.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Compounding the problem was the sprawl of residential development into what is known as the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wildland%E2%80%93urban_interface\">Wildland Urban Interface<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As people built homes further and further into woodland areas \u2013 places where brush and undergrowth can light up in seconds \u2013 the danger of widespread fire damage grew with it. These are places that used to be rural, agricultural land. Just like some homes within water live in a \u201cflood plain,\u201d many of these new communities are in what fire officials call a \u201cfire plain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, some communities have made efforts to extending clearance around their property and making upgrades to their homes. But there has been no additional funding for the forest service or firefighters. And even with extra preparation and precaution by individuals and communities, that\u2019s no guarantee of safety.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will always be on the horizon,&#8221; says Abbott with\u00a0Lake Travis Fire and Rescue. &#8220;As we see people move into the parts of Travis County out of the city, and the city buts up into the wildland-urban interface, they gotta remember that this is an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Texans who live in woodland areas will always have to deal with the possibility of wildfires. And while there are ways to mitigate that, the threat will never completely go away.<\/p>\n<p><em>A year ago next Sunday will mark the first anniversary of the wildfires that tore through Central Texas, burning more than 1600 homes, leveling whole swaths of land and causing firefighters, county officials and homeowners alike to rethink how they manage their land.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>While Texas has been blessed with above average rains so far this year, this time last year the state was in very different shape. All this week we&#8217;ll be returning to the fires of 2011 as part of a special project with KUT, <strong>Forged in Flames<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>On Tuesday, September 4 at 3 p.m., KUT 90.5 FM will air a special one-hour documentary telling the story of the fires.\u00a0It will air again Wednesday, Sept. 5 at 7 p.m.\u00a0You can listen on air and online, and stay tuned for more this\u00a0week.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While extreme heat and devastating drought have held much of the blame for the fires, there\u2019s a bigger picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":17005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[97,158],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}