February 26, 2008
Texas Burning, Evacuations & Firefighter Injuries
From Fox News:"Fire officials were waiting for daylight Tuesday to assess the scope of one massive wildfire stretching across Sterling, Reagan and Irion counties in Central Texas that could be as large as 500,000 acres, said David Abernathy, an incident commander with the forest service. Airplanes will fly over the fire during daylight Tuesday to obtain more accurate mapping data, he said.
At one point the blaze moved so quickly — fueled by 50 mph winds — that flames were consuming an area the size of "a football field every minute," Abernathy said.
Three firefighters were injured in Archer County when two fire trucks collided head on after one swerved around a car that pulled out into the road, Abernathy said. One of the firefighters was airlifted to an area hospital, an Archer County dispatcher said. He survived but his condition was unknown.
Abernathy said he was aware of at least two dozen separate fires across the state and expected there were "many, many more that we won't know about" until local fire departments report in."
Texas is getting hammered in early 08, wildfires have burned about 100,000 acres and destroyed about 60 homes and other structures in the past month . Two years ago, numerous outbreaks scorched 2.25 million acres statewide and killed 20 people. read more here!
Labels: 2008 Fire Season
