At about the same time I was checking headlines to see who was campaigning where today, I saw a headline about Gov. Perry returning to Texas and I received a text from my parents, and both had to do with wildfires. Perry is cutting some South Carolina campaign events short to return to Texas to deal with the wildfires in the state’s south and east.
“I’m leaving directly from here and going back to Texas. Our state has got wildfires. They’re running quite wild with zero containment,” Perry said. “So just keep those folks in your prayers if you will as we go back and try to keep people out of harm’s way in our state and pray for rain as well.”
Perry has kept in close contact with emergency operations officials dealing with the fires in Texas and spoke with his emergency management chief Monday morning.
The text from my parents said that they may have to evacuate their town. Texas been both very hot and very dry this summer, so much of both that fires are breaking out all over. Add in strong winds from Tropical Storm Lee and fires can break out and then leap over natural barriers like lakes and rivers. I heard one report that the large fire near Bastrop, TX leaped the Colorado River more than once today alone. Hundreds of homes have been either destroyed or are in danger, as many of the fires remain uncontrolled.
Massive fires are blazing across Central and Eastern Texas, burning hundreds of homes and consuming thousands of acres, amid hot and dry conditions this weekend.
An estimated 300 homes are damaged or destroyed and thousands of acres of land has been burned as officials scramble to haul in the resources needed to fight the blaze located southeast of Austin, Texas.
A 20-year-old woman and her child died in their trailer home Sunday near Gladewater, Texas, unable to escape the inferno that one longtime Texas sheriff said was the fastest-moving fire he had ever seen. That fire has since been extinguished.
The Texas Forest is keeping an updated Google Earth map of all the Texas wildfires. You’ll need the Google Earth plugin to see them.
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