Forest Fires close

[Breedlove]

We got up this morning with a smell of burning brush and the smoke A little later a DC 10 came over and two helicopters . My wife checked the county Facebook the fire was 1200 acres last evening and now 4000 acres . We are 19 miles from the forest fire . Hope it does’t cross 45 and get into the Sam Houston forest.

 

[Car-Guy]

And it's only 20% contained. That same area burned about 12 or 13 years ago, IIRC. I heard they closed 45 down in the area for a while but I understand it's been reopened.

EDIT: I just checked the Transtar cameras in the area and traffic looks to be moving normally and I can't see any smoke or fire.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

Stay safe and get ready to evacuate just in case.

 

[Breedlove]

We got smoke here , Huntsville looks like they are having a giant BBQ…no fire but lots of smoke.

 

[Breedlove]

I feel kind of sorry for the volunteer firemen out there . The VFD from here are a bunch of old guys and a few high school kids . One of our friends has been fighting fires in Louisiana and his wife said they are bringing all the guys from Texas back home to fight this fire . They can’t let it get into the Sam Houston forest. .

 

[Car-Guy]

^^^^^
~100 degree days, wearing all those heavy firefighting coats/boots/hats/equipment. Must be awful for them.

I'm "thinking" about loading up the pickup with 30 or 40 cases of bottled water and bags of ice and heading that way. May help cool off some of the fireman a little. Heck it's only a hour away.

 

[street]

^^^^^
~100 degree days, wearing all those heavy firefighting coats/boots/hats/equipment. Must be awful for them.

I'm "thinking" about loading up the pickup with 30 or 40 cases of bottled water and bags of ice and heading that way. May help cool off some of the fireman a little. Heck it's only a hour away.

That would be a kind thing to do.

 

[Breedlove]

My friend who is a forester has been fighting fires in Louisiana is 64 years old . He was part of the group doing the thinning in the Sam Houston forest . It’s neat talking to him . He was a corpsman at A&M and I ask him why …I don’t mention his age but he always says . This is all I have did since college I love the forest. The last time we had the fires over by Montgomery I remember our VFD guys . They looked like they were going to war …All 19 . Dan the fire chief always scares us to death saying if we catch fire they can’t react fast enough because some people have homes where they just hack out a space and that’s it.

 

[W2R]

We got up this morning with a smell of burning brush and the smoke A little later a DC 10 came over and two helicopters . My wife checked the county Facebook the fire was 1200 acres last evening and now 4000 acres . We are 19 miles from the forest fire . Hope it does’t cross 45 and get into the Sam Houston forest.

Take care. It might be wise to pack up the car for evacuation now, so you can get out of there quickly in case things rapidly change for the worst.

 

[Breedlove]

Now 4300 acres 20% contained . They are evacuating people within 5 miles . Farmers are busting it to get their cattle moved . Houston ABC Sky eye could not get in because of a wall of smoke . Man that must be hell for the fire fighters. Just high smoke here.

 

[Act2]

Be safe…

 

[pacergal]

OP--
stay safe. pack your to go bag and place it in the car or near the keys.
A few years ago we were on the "Set" part of Ready, Set ,Go(green/yellow/red)evacuation plans of our fire here. Fires can jump and spread so quickly.
Scary place to be, ready to evacuate at any moment.

 

[Car-Guy]

I'm about 40 miles away from the fire and I haven't been able to get any updates since ~10:30pm yesterday. The only updates that have been put out were from yesterday's data, other than some folks have been allowed to return home to the evacuation areas and some roads have been re-opened. Nothing really new on the the local news that I can get either.

 

[Breedlove]

They have pulled the Aggies and locals out . They been working 24 hour straight shifts . There has been fire fighters from Oklahoma and Florida shipped in . The Florida group is leading the command post. This afternoon they said they had more bull dozers working and about 40% contained . It did not jump near 45 . They are letting people within 3 miles of the fire return . Around 4500 acres burned so far . The high humidity moved in last night it helped permit some good results ……

 

[Car-Guy]

Latest update from the TEXAS A&M FOREST SERVICE INCIDENT VIEWER

Game Preserve Status: Active
Last updated: 09/03/23 17:13

COUNTY

Walker

DISPATCH ZONE

East-South

FIRE SIZE:

4428 ac

CONTAINMENT:

60%

 

[Breedlove]

That fire is called the game preserve fire .Some interesting stories coming out . A woman and her family were told to evacuate , she said she seen the fire in a long distance but she was evacuating when it was immediately at her door . She said it was moving the distance of a football field in a minute . She said she thought they were goners but the Calvary arrived right when the fire was at her doorstep.
She explains the firemen wasted no time said some of the firemen looked like high school kids . But her house suffered very minor damage.

 

[Breedlove]

Do you remember a few years ago the fire over by Magnolia and the Ren Fest .
That was a bad one .

 

[Car-Guy]

I'm familiar with the Magnolia area but I don't recall the fire. Of course that's getting pretty far away from me so I probably didn't pay much attention to it.

 

[aja8888]

Do you remember a few years ago the fire over by Magnolia and the Ren Fest .
That was a bad one .

Yes, that was just north of us in Magnolia. And then the one just south of Austin that took out a lot of homes (right west of 290). Can't remember the name of the town, though. We are dry as a tinder box here in The Woodlands.. Where the heck is this rain they say is coming?

 

[Car-Guy]

It's interesting looking at the current state map of fires that are being tracked. As of this morning there are 104 recent/current fires being tracked in the state. Most appear to be contained (or extinguished) About 20 are not 100% contained, including the largest one near Huntsville Texas. (just north of Houston)

Another interesting observation, 100% of the 104 fires currently on the map are in the central and eastern parts of the state. And ~90% of those are in the eastern part of the state. Of course, as you might guess, those are the most heavily wooded areas of the state.


https://public.tfswildfires.com/

 

[aja8888]

It's interesting looking at the current state map of fires that are being tracked. As of this morning there are 104 recent/current fires being tracked in the state. Most appear to be contained (or extinguished) About 20 are not 100% contained, including the largest one near Huntsville Texas. (just north of Houston)

Another interesting observation, 100% of the 104 fires currently on the map are in the central and eastern parts of the state. And ~90% of those are in the eastern part of the state. Of course, as you might guess, those are the most heavily wooded areas of the state.


https://public.tfswildfires.com/

As some of us know, the eastern part of Texas is all pine trees, which can burn like the dickens.

 

[Car-Guy]

As some of us know, the eastern part of Texas is all pine trees, which can burn like the dickens.

Yep... And I see them doing control burns all the time, when weather conditions are right, to burn out the under brush and to minimize these "out of control" forest fires when conditions are like they are now. Once a fire gets into the trees canopy, look out.

 

[Car-Guy]

The big one in Texas (at this time) is now 90% contained...

 

[Breedlove]

One thing that helps us normally is south Texas is the humidity . This helps to keep our fires down . We live just west of the Sam Houston forest in a pine forest . One time in a dry winter I was burning some brush and just like the devil was throwing fire at me I had a small forest fire. You are working over here putting it out and a new one starts over there. The VFD showed up and some guy who was some type of fire Marshall . But the kind words from him weren’t very kind . It was a brutal tongue lashing .

 

[Car-Guy]

One thing that helps us normally is south Texas is the humidity . This helps to keep our fires down . We live just west of the Sam Houston forest in a pine forest . One time in a dry winter I was burning some brush and just like the devil was throwing fire at me I had a small forest fire. You are working over here putting it out and a new one starts over there. The VFD showed up and some guy who was some type of fire Marshall . But the kind words from him weren’t very kind . It was a brutal tongue lashing .

Did it work?