Scarlet Quince Ramblings

Hurricanes, floods, hail … now fire!

All the yellow, orange, and green spots are various fires, and the quince flower is where we are. We got a lot of wind but no rain with Hurricane Lee, which made landfall in Louisiana and went east. The fires were made much worse by all the wind, and the fact that it basically hasn’t rained here in a year. I completely freaked out when I found out about them and was getting all set to evacuate. Once I realized that they were not actually heading toward us, I calmed down. It has been amazingly difficult to get information (or accurate information). The Weather Underground web site, for example, has staunchly insisted that we were having winds of 1 mile per hour even as the fire reports said the winds were 25-35 mph. Fortunately, the wind is gone, so I hope they will start to be able to contain these fires.

The large fire to the east of us started in the Lost Pines, which is a stand of loblolly pines which are the remnants of pine forest which covered much of Texas during the Ice Age. All but 100 of 6000 acres have burned. I suppose there have been wildfires there before so I hope it will come back. Here’s a video of how fast the fire spread.