I just watched the Good Morning America report on the Texas wildfires. I think we're all walking around in a state of shock. It's still hard to fathom how quickly these fires got out of control. Things were definitely looking better today because the winds finally died down, but there are still massive wildfires burning, and smoke still hangs heavy in the air.
This morning the smoke from the large fires still burning settled in like fog and forced us to keep the kids in from recess. My throat and eyes are burning from the dry air and smoke. Yesterday afternoon, after eating at my parents, I took some pictures of the smoke in the distance.
These first two pics are taken out at my parents' place. They are approximately 15-20 miles further from the fires than we are (I think that's right . . . I'm horrible with directions/distances so I could be off a little). You see that wall of clouds in the distance? Those aren't clouds. That's smoke.
In addition to the wall of smoke in the distance, you will notice the big patch of brown dirt in this next picture. That's normally a tank. Last year at this time there was a mama duck with her ducklings living there. Now it's bone dry. Depressing.
The next three pictures are of some land my parents' own closer to our town and the major fires. This is where we used to live when we first got married (remember the pics of our trailer?). When my parents sold their house out there they kept a lot of the land that was with it. You will notice the black smoke coming out of the trees. The smoke you're seeing is a rekindle on our land from the night before. It took an act of God to convince anyone that it was a fire and not a hotspot. A brush truck finally got out there to help put out the fire, but the bottom line is, the firefighters are stretched thin.
This is off the highway as we drove into our hometown. All that grey you see is smoke once again.
The largest fire right now is the Bastrop County Complex Fire. Bastrop County borders Caldwell county where we live. That fire has burned around 30,000 acres and destroyed between 500-600 homes. As of this morning, we still had a fairly large fire burning in Caldwell County. It had burnt 8000 acres and was 40% contained . . . hopefully, it's completely contained by now.
It is devastating to see all the damage that these fires are doing to Texas. Bastrop is such a beautiful area filled with tall pine trees. Unfortunately, those pine trees make a great fuel for the fires that are burning. Texans are an amazing group of people. We are fiercely proud of our state and will stand together and support one another in the worst of tragedies. We know that God is going to see us through these fires and this horrific drought and bring us out stronger on the other side.
Please continue to keep us Texans in your prayers. Pray for our firefighters who are emotionally and physically exhausted. Pray that we receive rain soon. And thank you to all the people that have come from hundreds and even thousands of miles away to help fight these fires.
2 Corinthians 4:8
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair
1 comment:
thanks for the detailed updates. It is nice to know what is going on back there!
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