{"id":423753,"date":"2026-09-02T08:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T08:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/423753\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T08:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T08:46:09","slug":"arlington-fire-department-helps-contain-ross-fire-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/423753\/","title":{"rendered":"Arlington Fire Department helps contain Ross Fire | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A sign thanking first responders stands Aug. 29 in Weatherford, Texas. Firefighters and first responders have worked for several days to contain and extinguish the Ross Fire.<\/p>\n

Photo by James Ward<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ross Fire continues to burn in Palo Pinto and Jack counties. The fire started Aug. 24 and has increased to over 90,000 acres, with only around 31% contained, as of the afternoon of Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

Firefighters across Texas and other states have joined together in an effort to contain the fire and eventually put it out.<\/p>\n

Lt. Juan Mata, public information officer for the Arlington Fire Department, said the fire is equivalent to around 133 square miles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city of Arlington boundaries is 100 square miles, so it\u2019s basically like the whole city of Arlington on fire,\u201d Mata said.<\/p>\n

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Ash covers a landscape where fire took over Aug. 29 in Palo Pinto County. The Ross Fire has burned over 85,000 acres across North Texas.<\/p>\n

Photo by James Ward<\/a><\/p>\n

Around 16 firefighters from Arlington are deployed for the Ross Fire, he said. Mata is deployed, as well, through the Texas Department of Emergency Management.<\/p>\n

He said a normal day for the Arlington crews varies. Mata was working night shifts for the first two nights of the fire, then switched to days; he said it can be a transition going back and forth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey try to not overwork people because that ultimately can lead to injuries or fatalities,\u201d Mata said.<\/p>\n

He said deployments last about 14 days, and then new people rotate through to give relief.<\/p>\n

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Four Arlington firefighters talk to each other after returning from a call Aug. 29 in Palo Pinto, Texas. Several firefighters from Arlington are helping put out the fire.<\/p>\n

Photo by James Ward<\/a><\/p>\n

Arlington Engine 9, from South Arlington, is one of the resources being used to combat the fire. On Saturday afternoon in a moment of downtime, Arlington firefighters hung their laundry to dry before going out on call.<\/p>\n

Mata said that technically those who are working the fire are working around the clock; even when they have some downtime, they can drop what they are doing on a dime to respond to the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say that we responded and assisted in this, I mean that\u2019s something that guys are going to remember for the rest of their career, and hopefully we don\u2019t have anything as big as this for a long time,\u201d Mata said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

@j.e.journalism<\/p>\n

news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sign thanking first responders stands Aug. 29 in Weatherford, Texas. Firefighters and first responders have worked for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,992,223],"class_list":["post-423753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-city","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423753","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=423753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}