{"id":405817,"date":"2026-08-13T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/405817\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T21:00:09","slug":"deadly-apache-crash-highlights-growing-central-texas-fire-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/405817\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly Apache crash highlights growing Central Texas fire risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A deadly helicopter crash near Salado<\/a> sparked a wildfire Wednesday as crews across Central Texas continued battling elevated fire danger and multiple blazes.<\/p>\n

An Apache helicopter went down in a field about 20 miles from Fort Hood, killing two Fort Hood soldiers. Investigators said the helicopter did not hit any people or structures. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt crashed into a field. You could tell it was a violent crash,\u201d said Cliff Coleman, a public information officer with the Bell County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE | 2 pilots killed in Fort Hood helicopter crash near Salado; sparked 100-acre wildfire<\/a><\/p>\n

The crash sparked the Dove Hollow Fire near Salado. According to the Bell County Sheriff’s Office, the fire was fully contained by Thursday afternoon. Five homes were threatened, but all were saved. Only one outbuilding was lost.<\/p>\n

“Approximately 155 acres burned. Although that is a significant amount of land, the outcome could have been catastrophic without the large and rapid response from fire departments across Bell County and neighboring counties,” the sheriff’s office said.<\/p>\n

More than 200 firefighters from 22 agencies assisted with the response.<\/p>\n

The helicopter crash came as wildfire danger remained elevated across Texas. Reilly Ruggiero, a public information officer with the Texas A&M Forest Service, said crews in the Hill Country and Central Texas have faced \u201ctopographic challenges\u201d and \u201ctricky\u201d terrain, but containment has been helped by heavy equipment and aircraft. <\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, our heavy equipment ground personnel have been able to contain them, and aircraft has helped us suppress this as well,\u201d Ruggiero said.<\/p>\n

Overnight, crews continued working to make sure containment lines held and to watch for hotspots and embers, which can be easier to spot in the dark. <\/p>\n

“Local and volunteer fire departments will stay on scene of a fire during the nighttime to ensure containment lines hold; higher humidity levels and cooler temperatures during the nighttime allow firefighters to have an advantage on suppression efforts to increase containment,\u201d Ruggiero said.<\/p>\n

In Burnet County, the Saxon<\/a>, Sandy, and Flat Rock fires have been contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service map.<\/p>\n

Counties across Texas have asked residents not to burn. In Central Texas, burn bans include Travis, Hays, Llano and Burnet counties. <\/p>\n

Ruggiero said fine fuels such as grasses can dry quickly even after rain. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo those are our grasses and very fine fuel types. Even though we did have some significant rain a couple of weeks ago, those types of fuels can dry out extremely fast. So that’s what we’re looking at, coupled with multiple days of extremely hot temperatures and some gusty winds overall have been increasing our wildfire risk throughout the state,\u201d Ruggiero said.<\/p>\n

Questions remained about the helicopter crash:<\/p>\n

Who were the soldiers?What caused the crash?Where was the helicopter headed?<\/p>\n

We will update you here, on social media, and on air as soon as we have those answers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A deadly helicopter crash near Salado sparked a wildfire Wednesday as crews across Central Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-405817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405817","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=405817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}