Texas is dry as a bone and this weekend has been unusually windy. Result: 25,000 acres and 476 homes burned in one wildfire outside the Texas capital plus dozens of smaller fires.
Link Here.

I live in a highly wooded area on the north side of Houston. Currently it's estimated that 10% of the trees in Houston have died due to the drought. In the last three days there have been four separate forest fires within six miles of our house. The closest is been less than two miles away. That fire will have to jump a stream to endanger our neighborhood...but the stream is down to 10 feet across and six inches deep due to the drought. Thankfully the crazy winds are dying down.

BOB is packed and ready.
-Blast

Stay safe Blast!

sounds really bad,a storm is nasty but a fire destroys everything in it's path.

Stay safe Blast, the news reports sound horrible.

Thanks. The neighborhood is hazy with smoke this morning but the winds have dropped down to nil. This should help bring the fires under control.

According to the news this morning there are over 65 million dead trees in Houston right now due to the drought. if the drought continues this could double. If fires don't take those trees the next big storm will.
-Blast

Glad your winds have dropped. In a high wind situation, fire lines of any width are ineffective. Driven by Santa Ana winds, fire in southern California have jumped four lane freeways. Wind propelled embers will start spot fires two to three miles ahead of the main flame front.

What is the deal with all these Texas fires? Growing up in big D many moons ago, we never heard of such things. Texas being Texas, is it just that yours have to be bigger than anyone else's.....

Stay safe, Blast.

Now up to 57 fires, over 1000 homes burned.

Texas has been in a drought since last fall, we've only recieved 15% of our normal rainfall in the last year. We had over 30 days in a row above 100F in July & August here in Houston. Everything is dead and dry.

I took down and oak tree back in early August and stacked the wood to dry. The wind and heat acted like a dehydrator, the oak logs are already dried and splitting. They look like they've been sitting a year already.

-Blast

Blast already mentioned the extreme drought conditions and many 100+ degree days there this summer. I doubt that most folks who don't live in the region realize how bad the drought is there. There's a map that goes along with this article that shows how badly affected Texas is by drought.

It's interesting that coming from California, we don't show up on this map. Only recently did we emerge from our own long drought period and many horrible wildfire seasons in a row.

And if we recall those horrible wildfires in Australia a couple years back, those occurred during a historic multi-year drought there.

Way to close. The wildfires we've had in SOCAL have jumped I-15 which at that point was about 10 lanes (5 heading north and 5 south). With a little wind, jumping a stream ain't nuttin.

65 million dead trees!!that's something that i have not heard on the news along with the fire reports.even when all this is over it's going to be a ecological disaster.