Skip to footer

Hidden Pines Fire: Texas crews look to the sky for help fighting wildfire

Crews fighting the Hidden Pines Fire in central Texas have called in an air tanker to help control the blaze, which has destroyed 34 structures and scorched more than 4,000 acres.

|
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman/AP
Flames from the Hidden Pines Fire glow at night on Thursday, in Bastrop, Texas. Residents of about 400 homes have been advised to evacuate since the fire began Tuesday, officials said. The cause of the blaze is unknown.

Firefighting crews in Central Texas have called in the heavy cavalry – a jet tanker that caries 12,000 gallons of flame retardant.

The Texas A&M Forest Service is struggling to stop a fire which is now known as the Hidden Pines Fire in Bastrop County. To help them in their fight, a DC-10 jet tanker that can spread nearly 12,000 pounds of retardant over five separate drops is set to arrive Friday morning.

The “Very Large Air Tanker” will arrive and be ready for use Friday morning. Hopes are high that with the combination of the new plane and an advancing cool front, the fire will be further contained.  

“It’s been a good day for firefighting,” Bastrop Country Judge Paul Pape told the Associated Press.

Bastrop County, about 40 miles southeast of Austin, faced a large fire in 2011 that destroyed 1,600 homes. Two people were killed.

So far, the Hidden Pines Fire is not on the same scale as the 2011 fire, but wildfires are notoriously unpredictable. The previously the fire quadrupled in size over the course of a single day.

As of late Thursday, the current fire was about 25 percent contained. Thirty-four “home structures” have been destroyed and 4,383 acres have been scorched, reports KUT, a public radio station operated by the University of Texas, Austin.

Residents of some 400 homes have been advised to evacuate. No deaths or injuries have been reported. The source of the fire is currently unknown.

Dennis Moniger’s address is on the list of burned houses posted by county officials. The fire also burned down his brother’s house.

“He saw the fire jump across the street and onto his property,” Mr. Moniger said to the AP. “It jumped form treetop to treetop.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned that the fire is still a threat. 

The fire is fueled by the heat and low rainfall. The high temperatures reported around Austin are expected to drop, but humidity will remain low and dry, Weather Service meteorologist Cory Van Pelt told the AP. 

Smoke from the wildfire can be seen in downtown Austin, more than 40 miles east of the flames.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Hidden Pines Fire: Texas crews look to the sky for help fighting wildfire
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/1016/Hidden-Pines-Fire-Texas-crews-look-to-the-sky-for-help-fighting-wildfire
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe