Wildfires burn across Texas as high temperatures continue

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – As things continue to heat up across not only the state but the nation, Texas A&M Forest Service Associate Director and Fire Chief Wes Morehead says it is important to remember the climate we are in.

“It’s been hot and dry. That’s not unusual for Texas. It’s summer in Texas, July in Texas. But this year we’ve we’ve had what we like to call a flash drought,” said Morehead. “So we’ve had about six weeks without rain without precipitation. And what that’s done is really dry out our water and fuels. And when I say fuels, our wildfire fuels just talking vegetation so if your grass is like mine in the house, it’s brown. It’s dried out and that’s really receptive to wildfire. See the same thing in brush in our trees right now.”

Fires are popping up closer to home, with known fires north of the Brazos Valley and across the state.

“This year actually started out kind of slow as far as wildfires were concerned, we had a fairly wet spring. We grew a lot of green grass and they kind of inhibited wildfire grows. But over the last six weeks, with the drying conditions we’ve seen, we’ve seen wildfires really spark across the state border to border. At this point, we’re seeing a lot of drought. And so there’s really no portion of the state that’s not affected and not seeing wildfires,” Morehead said.

With temperatures not decreasing any time soon, and rain far on the horizon, Morehead expects these fires to continue burning.

The Texas A&M Forest Service has been on the frontlines of these fires since the beginning.

“The Texas A&M Forest Service is called in to augment their response efforts, so we’ll bring firefighters, qualified wildland firefighters, as well as heavy equipment in the form of dozers and motor graders. As well as aircraft, helicopters, and fixed wing air tankers to help augment that local capacity to get the wildfire out.”

Wildfires, more often than not, are caused by people, according to Morehead.

“Nine out of 10 wildfires in the state of Texas are human caused. So, 90% of the wildfires that we see are us doing something normal day-to-day activities that initiate a spark, create a heat source, and start a wildfire. So it’s just us being cognizant of our daily activities. Make sure before you burn brush, before you burn debris, you check with local officials, with the county, to make sure there’s no burn ban in place. If there’s a burn ban in place, don’t do any outside burning. Also, be cognizant of simple things like driving over dead grass, or parking on dead grass. Undercarriages, the cars exhaust system, underneath cars is extremely hot, and if you park or drive over dead grass, it can actually ignite that grass.”

Currently, Brazos County is under a burn ban. It joins 15 other Brazos Valley counties in burn bans.

“We brought in additional resources to augment our normal staffing and we’ve got them pre positioned throughout the state. So we don’t see any precipitation unfortunately in the next two to three weeks, and so we’ve stood up resources accordingly and are ready to respond as we see ignitions on the landscape.”