With all of Texas officially in drought conditions and with hundreds of thousands of acres of wildfires still burning across the state, local authorities are no better off battling blazes of their own.

Last week, both Tomball and Magnolia faced massive wildfires that nearly exhausted every possible fire fighting tool to extinguish them.

Last week approximately 30 acres of wooded land and heavy underbrush caught fire in Magnolia in the southern portion of the city. The fire threatened the fledgling Magnolia Ridge residential development, but was eventually contained, thanks to several local fire fighting agencies, five bulldozers and “airdrops” from helicopters, Magnolia Fire Chief Gary Vincent said.

The fire ignited just east of the railroad tracks that run along FM 1774 and, with high winds, spread quickly to the east. No one was injured and there was no structural damage, Vincent said. The fire was still moderately burning last week.

“Currently what we’re doing is maintaining the fire line, monitoring it and making sure it doesn’t spread,” Vincent said.

He added that fire fighters will be holding a similar tactic with the fire for “at least the next several days.”

Also last week, a 25-acre fire ignited in a heavily-wooded area east of Tomball. That blaze, according to Tomball Fire Chief Randy Parr, took three days to “get contained” with the help of the Texas Forest Service and six surrounding fire departments.

“It’s still smoldering,” Parr said last week.

No homes were damaged in that fire, but Parr said a few were “threatened” that are located on the east side of Willow Creek.

“But they were protected,” he added.

Most areas of Texas, including mostly northern and western portions of the state, have not seen significant rainfall since the fall of 2010. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, every part of Texas was in at least a moderate drought last week.

Burn bans are in effect for Harris, Waller and Montgomery Counties.

“They have not experienced this kind of a dry spell since 1916,” Parr said. “It’s a tragic situation up there (north and west Texas). They are truly in the throes of a critical drought.”

As of last week, two Texas fire fighters had been killed battling wildfires and some reports showed that up to one million acres of Texas burned.

Parr said while the cause of the two local fires remains under investigation, such fires can be caused by any number of possibilities.

Those included lit cigarettes, lightning strikes, transformer’s blowing, or backfires on some vehicles.

“Be very careful about how you discard your smoking materials,” Parr said. “No outside fires whatsoever. Do not burn anything.”

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed