Late-summer wildfire season has arrived across the Texas Panhandle as hot, dry conditions and ongoing drought increase the risk of fires igniting and spreading.<\/p>\n
Resources from across the country are stationed in the Panhandle to help respond quickly if a wildfire breaks out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brief every morning to make sure we have the information to keep our resources safe in the event we end up on a fire,\u201d said Mike Reed, leader of the South Dakota Task Force. \u201cWe do different types of training. Some is drafting, tactics or strategy and some of those other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas A&M Forest Service officials said wildfire activity has increased in recent months.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last few months, we\u2019ve been seeing an increase in wildfire ignitions,\u201d said Juan Rodriguez, wildland-urban interface coordinator for the Texas A&M Forest Service. \u201cThat\u2019s from lightning strikes to roadside starts, things like that. It\u2019s become a lot easier for these wildfire conditions to appear because of the weather patterns we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fire engines, equipment and personnel are strategically positioned across the region to allow for a faster response.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody can do it by themselves,\u201d Reed said. \u201cWe have initial attack resources, but when any one area gets really busy and gets a lot of fire, they always count on neighbors for help. The world is getting smaller and smaller, and we\u2019re all over the country, quite honestly, at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said Texas has also requested additional personnel and equipment from other states.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have folks, fire engines, equipment and personnel from throughout the country, throughout other states, that have come here upon request to work for the state of Texas,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n
High temperatures and low humidity are expected to continue for days, and potentially weeks, into September, maintaining elevated wildfire conditions across the Panhandle.<\/p>\n
Texas Panhandle wildfire risk rises as hot, dry conditions persist (KVII)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late-summer wildfire season has arrived across the Texas Panhandle as hot, dry conditions and ongoing drought increase the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-422249","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\/422249","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=422249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}