(College Station)—On Dec. 27, 2005, furious wildfires swept across the West Texas town of Cross Plains, killing two residents and destroying homes, businesses and a Methodist church.
“We lost 116 homes but were able to save the downtown,” said Abilene Fire Chief Brad Fitzer. “I’ll never forget that night,” he said, and neither will Jim Hull, Texas state forester and director of the Texas Forest Service (TFS).
“The Cross Plains Fire was the beginning of what is turning into one of the worst wildfire sieges I have witnessed in my entire 40-year career with the agency,” said Hull. On Jan. 1 alone, Texas lost more than 150,000 acres to wildfires, more than all of 2005.
March wildfires have been grim as well. Eleven people in the Texas Panhandle had died and 951,000 acres of grassland had burned by March 17. The fires killed about 10,000 horses and cattle and destroyed 15 homes and hundreds of miles of fence.
Cross
Plains High School was one of more than 100 buildings destroyed or damaged
by wildfire on Dec. 27.
“As the director of the state agency responsible for protecting Texans and the state’s forest resources from wildfire, I can tell you I’m extremely concerned and appalled at the devastating loss of lives and property we’ve seen in less than three months,” he said.
A combination of extreme drought, high winds and careless human behavior is causing the wildfires. While TFS’ comprehensive prevention programs and proactive, aggressive planning and preparedness can decrease the number of human-caused fires, extreme weather conditions, which create the greatest increased threat to wildfires, cannot be controlled.
“Texas is in the midst of a 25- to 30-year dry period, meaning even with the recent rain events, we can expect a long term situation with an increase in the number and severity of wildfires, unlike anything we’ve seen in 50 years,” said Tom Spencer, TFS Predictive Services coordinator.
“I
want to extend my sincere appreciation for the tireless efforts of all
personnel and firefighters across the state. While this has been a historic
year in terms of wildfire losses, it would have been much worse without
the efforts of these dedicated folks working to save the lives and property
of Texans. Thank you!”
—James B. Hull, director, Texas Forest Service
To contend with the weather conditions, the agency has created the Predictive Services program, which provides real-time fire risk data enabling fire managers to pre-position personnel and equipment to locations where risk is expected to be high. That works well, but when high fire danger and wildfires persist from one end of the state to the other, additional crews and equipment, like aircraft, are needed to bolster the state’s firefighting resources.
Under normal conditions, volunteer fire departments (VFDs) are the first responders to Texas wildfires. Even with the success of the agency’s VFD Assistance Programs, volunteers cannot be expected to carry the state’s wildfire suppression responsibilities for long periods of time.
When the current fire siege hit in late December, TFS suppression resources totaled 57 bulldozers and 70 firefighters, not nearly enough to handle the situation. It wasn’t until Texas mobilized 1,612 firefighters, 56 helicopters and air tankers, 132 dozers and 69 fire engines from 38 states that the situation became manageable.
“It takes about five days to get these resources mobilized, and sometimes we just don’t have that kind of time,” said Paul Hannemann, incident commander for the central and west zones wildfire response. “Our urgent resource requests could be somewhat alleviated if we had adequate resources within our own state to rapidly attack and keep wildfires from turning into complex, multiple-day events.”
The
Borger Fire east of Amarillo tore through nearly 480,000 acres of grassland
and destroyed nine homes.
There’s a high price to pay for out-of-state resources. To date, the bill for the 2005-2006 wildfire response is already up to nearly $45 million.
And, we’re not through yet, says Hull.
"We're grateful for the help, but Texas has depended heavily on other states and the federal government for wildfire protection in the past, and it's been there. Our heavy dependence on outside resources this year with the devastating fire season we have experienced has caused us to examine what would happen if these outside resources were not available,” he said.
What about the future?
“We have developed and proposed the Texas Wildfire Protection Plan to build up the state’s protection resources. This innovative, operational plan not only provides additional firefighters and equipment, but equally important, it incorporates up-front prevention, mitigation and preparedness across the state, long before a wildfire starts,” said Hull.
Regardless, 22.5 million Texans are depending on the Texas Forest Service. “We will continue to do the best we can with existing resources and assistance to volunteer fire departments,” said Hull.
The agency’s seven Volunteer Fire Department Assistance Programs provide cost-share grants for equipment, protective gear and training, and two private foundations have stepped forward to make emergency grants available to hard-hit fire departments.
