Fire breaks out in Lampasas County LAMPASAS, Texas (KWTX) - Texas A&M Forest Service is providing help for a fire named the Lucy Creek Fire in Lampasas County near Lampasas. The fire is estimated to be 100 acres and is currently 25 percent contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. No more information is available at this time. Copyright 2023 KWTX. All rights reserved. Only an hour outside of Austin. Then there was this in 2011. Looking back, much has been learned since the Steiner Sept. 2011 wildfires By LYNETTE HAALAND ,Four Points News On Sept. 4, 2011, wildfire was reported moving toward Steiner Ranch at 3:58 p.m. A few minutes earlier on that Sunday afternoon, electrical lines along RM 620 near Mansfield Drive “had enough slack to slap and arc, causing molten metal to fall onto combustible grass,” according to the then Travis County Fire Marshal Hershel Lee. The fire, which started on an undeveloped residential lot, was carried by embers across RM 620, igniting dry vegetation and moving into the Steiner Ranch subdivision. Within hours, the fires destroyed 23 homes. The Travis County Fire Marshal’s Office Fire Investigative Team studied the area for months, analyzing burn patterns, taking witness statements, watching video footage and conducting site visits. The official cause of the initial fire was released 14 months later: electrical lines came into contact with one another, arced, ignited grass and spread by high winds. “The exceptional drought, low humidity and high winds and temperature combined to create conditions that were ripe for fire ignition,” explained Lee in November of 2012. That scenario has been called “the perfect storm”. Robert Abbott remembers that Labor Day weekend. He was assistant fire chief then of the Lake Travis Fire Rescue Travis County Emergency Services District No. 6. Steiner’s fire was one of six that were burning in Travis County on Sept. 4, 2011. Resources from all fire departments were stretched to their limits. “In general we learned a lot,” said Abbott, who is now LTFR fire chief. “During the 2011 fires, some things we did well, that others validated we did well… like we kept our head about us regarding what was presented to us.” In 2009 and 2010, Abbott remembers that previous LTFR chief Jim Linardos warned the area that he could see evidence of a “California-level fire”. Linardos, who came to LTFR in 2006 from North Lake Tahoe, had experience fighting fires there with similar terrain. “There had been data to indicate that we were prime for something like (the Sept. 2011 fires),” Abbott said. “There was a historic drought with over 100 days of 100 degrees or hotter… dry weather, low humidity, and wind matched with anything that would cause a spark.” The entire Steiner Ranch community was evacuated which caused hours and hours of major back ups and bumper to bumper traffic leaving the area on RM 620 north, opposite of where the fire started. Officials realized the evacuation was poor and since then have worked on several initiatives that could help things run better in a disaster. Improvements One major thing, Travis County approved adding a new, emergency-only road in July 2019. Route B will connect Flat Top Ranch Road to Montview Drive between the Steiner and adjacent Montview communities. The $650,000 roadway is in the design phase and is to start construction later this year. “We support it (the emergency road) in any way. We support any additional way in and out,” Abbott said. Another thing that the county has been involved in is identifying shelter-in-place sites and never expects to evacuate an entire community again. It is one of the things the Fire Marshal’s Office has been doing, said Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea, Precinct 2. A STAR Flight helicopter assists with fire suppression on the Steiner Ranch fire in Travis County, Texas “People won’t all need to evacuate,” Shea said. “We’re paying more attention to these shelter-in-place locations. VHS, that’s where you’d want people to evacuate to because there’s not much flammable material around the buildings.” Since the 2011 fires, the county now has better mapping tools to find exact locations. Another tool officials will use in future emergency situations is contra-flow evacuation by making all lanes of traffic go the same direction. Also officials have set up traffic controls and traffic management better. “They do drills and scenarios playing out traffic management for the purpose of evacuation as part of disaster preparedness,” Shea said. Today there is a much more effective emergency communications across the region with Warn Central Texas. Shea advocated for this better emergency notification system. Shea was also instrumental in working with the Comanche Trail community on hosting a fire drill on March 2, 2019. It took more than a year to plan for the three-hour evacuation. This helped the community prepare for and train for a real emergency, she said.
I prefer the pranking Santa Ana winds that messes with people's relationships as opposed to the wildfire starting kind. But Austin has actually had a few wildfires around the past couple weeks. Yesterday in east Austin. 2 days ago in Cedar Park. Last week in downtown. 11 days ago at a homeless camp in SE Austin Thankfully, firefighters have gotten them under control. But lots of people are scared of the dry windy conditions.
https://www.wtsp.com/article/life/a...-pink/67-88f6e127-b760-41f7-b595-d90947431535 TAMPA, Fla. — Local scientists are trying to figure out what exactly is turning dolphins' bellies pink while hanging out in the Florida waters. 10 Tampa Bay Photojournalist Tim Burquest met with experts with the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program who say dolphins' bellies do blush – but not because they're embarrassed. "What we know is that the animals are facing an increasingly serious situation," explains Randall Wells, the research program's director. "They are mammals like us so they produce heat like we do and they have very few mechanisms for being able to shed that heat. "So overheating is a potential issue..." RELATED: Clearwater Beach water temperature hits 93 degrees: Is that normal? According to Wells, the water temperature as of now is more than 90 degrees where the dolphins live – leaving the mammals with no refuge of getting away from the heat. Ultimately, the way dolphins are able to deal with the hot waters is by increasing blood flow to their outer bodies, the director explains. Part of this way of adapting means more blood will be near the surface of the body, turning some of the white skin pink in color. "We find that in the summertime in general, more dolphins die than any other time of the year," Wells said. "We can't say for certain how heat is related to that but we suspect that heat stress may exacerbate a number of problems..." RELATED: Yes, there really are pink dolphins! Just ask a Houston man who shot this video The process of bringing more blood near the surface of the body is called vasodilation, research leaders explain online. "We're in an unprecedented situation to have this hot of water for this long without the rains coming in each afternoon to help keep things cooler is really a different situation than what we've faced before," the director stated.
Peshtigo Fire, Wisconsin, 1871 - 1,152 deaths Cloquet and Moose Lake Fires, Minnesota, 1918 - 453 deaths Great Hinkley Fire, Minnesota, 1894 - 418 deaths Thumb Fire, Michigan, 1881 - 282 deaths Those are the fires that had more fatalities than Maui, which has passed both the Camp Fire (Paradise) in California and the 1910 Big Burn in Idaho and Montana.
A 'climate feedback loop': Why Austin is locked in one of its hottest summers ever https://www.kut.org/energy-environm...-is-locked-in-one-of-its-hottest-summers-ever
We have the potential for some major fire activity in Oregon and Washington due to hot and dry east winds coming from the Great Basin, topping the Cascades, and screaming downslope through the gaps and drainages. Plus, we'll get dry lightning Tuesday-Thursday. In spite of some good winter precip, the fuels have been stressed by multiple years of drought and large fuels are not as responsive as finer fuels.
Our temps in the DFW area are about to finally drop below 100 degrees for about 3 days to the upper 90s (lol). It may even get down to 65 for a low (wth?)! Our lows have been in the mid-to-upper 80s. But then ... right back up to 107/108. Fall can't get here soon enough with some more rain.
And just think--this is the coolest five year period I'll experience for the rest of my life. I hope we aren't able to say that about our kids and grandkids.
Yes, all infrastructure costs money to build, maintain, and repair. But what's the risk from underground vs overhead? An underground line is not going to arc in the smoke. How much does a burned out neighborhood cost compared to a repaired or new underground line? And it's not just an economic equation. You have to consider people, communities, society, and even visuals.
I fear it will, but by the time it does, people will have significantly fewer options and many will be stuck.
