Our state is in an extreme situation with the amount of wildfires we have going right now. I live in Central Texas and as of this morning the wildfires just here in our area have surpassed 30,000 acres, nearly 600 homes burned and 0% containment. It's such a crazy and helpless feeling that I've never been in and I'm so saddened by the amount of loss we've seen and there's still more to see.
I spoke about our lack of rain recently and this weekend we even saw the temperature drop along with the humidity level and the winds pick up speed which normally would have been nice but it made for a perfect fuel for grassfires.
There are so many emergency responders and volunteers who've been working for the past 72 hours straight and I can't say enough about how amazing they all are for their hard work.
Please pray that God opens up the skies and gives us some desperately needed rain so that we can get these fires put out.
This is a map of the most current fires in Texas as of 1pm today* (Sept. 6, 2011)
*there have already been 3 new fires pup up since posting this photo
this is a photo via twitter of the Bastrop smoke clouds behind the Capital on Sept. 5, 2011
another view of the smoke/fires in Bastrop from Downtown on Sept. 5, 2011
another photo via twitter of the Bastrop fire on Sept. 4, 2011
this is a satellite image via NASA of the Bastrop fires that can be viewed from space on Sept. 5, 2011
these are the photos I took of the fire less than two miles from our house as seen from our backyard on Sept. 5, 2011
fire officials say that this particular fire "burned 300 acres, destroyed 11 homes and damaged nine others"
We were very lucky that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction and felt safe enough to stay put all through the night.
Right now I'm so ticked off that this is happening in our beautiful state and even more pissed at all the smokers out there who flick their cigarettes out their windows with no thought to the fact that they can and will start fires.
I can't apologize for blowing up everyone's twitter with tweets and retweets about these fires because if you were here and in my shoes you would be just as worried and as desperate for information as I am.
If you are at all interested in helping out or getting more information about the #centraltxfires then please click any of the following links
Thank you for all your prayers and I'll try to update as I know more
17 comments:
Praying for you and your state. Here in Oklahoma it's been bad but not to this level. In march we had a huge grass fire come within blocks of our home. We were forced to leave. It was such a stressful time but our home was saved. We all need rain so badly , and lots of it!
thanks for posting this Jen!! Luckily we in Central Austin havent been hit...yet. This is just so scary!
The fires are horribly sad :( I hope you all get some rain soon!
So scary and sad! Praying for all of you and for rain to come! xoxo
praying that you stay safe and get some rain soon!
I hope you guys stay safe.. I hate that you're so close to it all. That fire activity map is SO scary. Praying for rain for all of us in Texas!
Thank you for posting this. I pray for rain.
I'm so so sorry, Jenn. :( This is so scary, and I hope you continue to stay safe. <3
This is so scary... we just moved to OK from Central Texas (Temple)... so I can imagine that if we were still there, we would be affected. Prayers for TX, my home state!
This is incredibly scary. I've got EVERYONE in my prayers.
Oh gosh! That's just terrible! I'll be keeping the state in my thoughts and prayers!
Thinking about all of you in Texas! My thoughts will be with you
So devastating! Praying HARD for y'all!!!
OMG!! We must have totally read each others minds!! I did a post about the fires earlier, too. And I put a picture of the TX map, too!! CRAZY!!
Praying for you, my friend!! God Bless Texas!
This thing is so ridiculous. I live downtown and can smell it from bastrop in the air. Absurd.
"Helpless" is a good way to put it. Hope you're staying safe!
Prayers coming your way. It is so sad to see such devestation.
as soon as I heard about the fires, right away I thought of you. Praying that the fires die down. that picture taken on the road is just so sad. Oh and don't be sorry about the re-tweeting, its good for people to be educated.
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