Wildfires

Wow! The state of Texas is dry. We haven't had very much rain this winter and our lakes are very low. Then if that hasn't been enough we have had some really WINDY days. This past Thursday the wind was unbelievable with gusts about 40mph+. We were under a red flag warning, which means, fire danger.

In the middle of the afternoon, it started smelling like someone was burning a wood stove.

Remembering the weather report, from that morning, I turned on the TV to see if there was a fire and where. It smelled so strong in my house, that I thought it probably was not that far away. Turns out the fire was far away and there were actually 3 or 4 of them. They were all about 100 miles west of our home. The winds were fueling the fires. Several small towns were being evacuated and one town was burning. I watched the TV in horror as people's homes were burning to the ground. The towns fire departments were working very hard. Citizens were determined and were helping. They had garden hoses hooked up and were spraying water on the flames and houses.

Many towns around sent engines, as well as, Dallas and Fort Worth.

I looked outside and was surprised still, to see the smoke and ashes in the yard. It was so windy. I decided to take a few pictures and see if the camera would catch it.

As you look at the top two pictures, the trees in the background look fuzzy. That isn't fuzz. It is smoke.

In the second picture, near the bottom is a pond, my house is on a hill that leads down there, but looking across to the other side is where you can notice the smoke.

The bottom picture is the sunset and what the firey sun was doing to the smoke etc in the sky.

Today the fires are under control, if not out. The wind has settled down to a breeze. We are expecting rain and thunderstorms tonight.