![\"Austin-Travis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/89CD265010A1C1377422E133D67A1100.jpg\")
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AUSTIN, Texas – Austin and Travis County are under disaster declarations due to the risk of wildfires.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Officials say September 2025 was the fifth-driest on record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Travis County has been under a burn ban since September.<\/p>\n
Wildfires in Travis County <\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
While the whole region is dry, southeast Travis County is a hotspot for fires. Embers can travel for more than a mile.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Travis County Judge Andy Brown says there were two wildfires in the county over the weekend.<\/p>\n
“One possible caused by construction… another caused by mowing,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Pilot Knob Fire was at U.S. 183 and FM 812.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The disaster declarations help with getting resources faster and streamline emergency coordination.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We can contract more quickly, we don’t have to have a normal procurement process,” Brown said.<\/p>\n
Dig deeper:<\/p>\n
The risk of wildfires is year-round in Central Texas.<\/p>\n
“If you look historically, this is normal. We’ve been putting up burn bans in September and October for the last few years,” Gary Howell, Fire Marshal for Travis County, said.<\/p>\n
“If you live here, you need to know what to do to prevent wildfires,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said.<\/p>\n
Rains over the summer caused more vegetation to grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The rain that we got earlier in the summer, we had explosive growth, then basically the faucet was turned off, and we started to see the drying. We’re at a critical point with the fuel moisture that’s dried out now,” Howell said.<\/p>\n
Brown says last weekend, someone was cited for violating the burn ban. You can’t burn trash under a ban, and you have to be careful about things that could cause a spark.<\/p>\n
“These are real consequences and the behavior of people can really affect us and really cause fires, so please take this seriously,” Brown said.<\/p>\n
What you can do:<\/p>\n
Watson says the city never stops preparing for fires. Public safety teams are working on evacuation plans, and the city will start having meetings with high-risk neighborhoods, so people can protect their homes and families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You can request a meeting here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I’m hopeful every neighborhood in Austin, every homeowner’s association in Austin will engage with the city, so it can provide information to the people who live in those neighborhoods,” Watson said.<\/p>\n The city also redesigned the website ATX Wildfire Hub<\/a>. You can put in your address to see your wildfire risk. You can also ask the city to evaluate your property for wildfire risks for free.<\/p>\n You should have emergency essentials in your house, like non-perishable food, water, and flashlights. You should have an emergency meetup plan for your family.<\/p>\n To receive emergency alerts, sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen<\/p>\n Austin<\/a>Wildfires<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas – Austin and Travis County are under disaster declarations due to the risk of wildfires.\u00a0 Officials…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,223,394,216,393,5607],"class_list":{"0":"post-13006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-travis-county","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}