Central Texas Burns

Central Texas is in flames today as dozens of wildfires burn across the region. Fanned by the winds from former Hurricane Lee, and burning across an area suffering an exceptional drought, tens of thousands of acres and hundreds of homes are threatened or destroyed already. On Sunday alone, the Texas Forest Service reports 56 new fires and over 30,000 acres burned. That number does not include fires that were handled solely by local fire departments.

Just east of Austin, TX, the Bastrop complex of fires has burned at least 17,600 acres. The main fire was first noted yesterday, and is reported to have burned a front four miles wide and sixteen miles long. KXAN television is reporting hundreds of homes have been lost to this fire alone.

Evacuations in front of the oncoming fires have been common. The only deaths currently reported are a mother and an infant in Gladewater, TX, where a fast moving fire overtook a trailer park and trapped the victims in their home. A man living in the home was burned attempting to rescue the woman and child.

Some fires were started by downed electric wires caused by the high winds. Authorities pointed to arcing wires as the cause of a grass fire near Katy. It was contained after burning about 60 acres, according to KPRC in Houston. The station also reported a grass fire near Columbus. About 1,600 acres and two homes burned before the fire was contained.

Just west of Austin, in the Steiner Ranch subdivision, firefighters are struggling to save many homes. The Austin Statesman quotes authorities as saying that the fire has burned about 160 acres and 25 homes.

One of the stories about this outbreak of wildfires in Central Texas is the way that social media has helped provide information to local residents. Local television did not begin to actively follow the story until late Sunday, long after thousand of people had been evacuated from their homes. Internet sites operated by government agencies were silent, due to the holiday weekend.

Steiner Ranch residents have created a Facebook page to provide information about the fire. On Twitter, two hashtags were created for tweets about the fires, #centraltxfires and #txfires. A Twitter list for the topic was also created, providing current fire news from a number of outlets. The website titled Blogs of War has created a Crisis Monitor page with many links to information resources, as well as providing current fire news.


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