Monday, February 28, 2011

110,000 acre Texas Wildfres



When I was watching the weather this morning, I saw a brief report about wildfires currently burning in Texas. I was not able to find a copy of that report, but I did find a report by the Associated Press on youtube that I embedded here. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today reports here that multiple wildfires driven in part by winds encompass 110,000, have burned 68 homes, and have resulted in the death of a five-year old girl. He also reports that firefighting aircraft were grounded on Sunday due to high winds, that the Texas Forest Service hopes to get these aircraft in the air today if conditions allow.

The Texas Forest Service (TFS) has a couple of webpages that you might want to check out: (1) current fire conditions where they update current fire conditions around Texas, and (2) a page where you can download a kmz (google earth) file that, among other things, includes a layer showing current TFS wildfires, see this TFS Page for more information (click on the "map" link to go to page where you can download the kmz file. I downloaded the KMZ file and saved an image for you.


Finally, the Texas Forest Fire Service has a Facebook page, I believe that you can access the page without a Facebook account

I'm not sure if there are other wildfires currently burning in Texas that are not shown in this map. But, at least you get an idea of what is going on.

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