The country has recently sustained an "earthquake," a major hurricane, and because everything happens in threes, this month comes the Bastrop County Complex Fire in Central Texas. Texas has been ravaged by brush fires across the state lately. This recent fire is so big, erratic, and fast-moving that they are actually putting the word "complex" into its official name. The fire has already destroyed 25,000 acres and about 1,000 homes. But those figures are probably already out of date as this is typed. The blaze is consuming about one home every four minutes!
Governor Rick Perry actually had to leave the GOP campaign trail to get back home and try to wrangle aid and manpower to deal with this, but I'm not sure he -- or anyone -- really can, save Mother Nature and one hell of a rainstorm. Makes you almost wish Hurricane Katia would change course westward.
People are calling this the most destructive brush fire on record in Texas, and I believe them based on these 5 scary characteristics of the blaze alone:
1. No one knows how it started. It could have been a match in the woods, a wood fire spark blown away, a car fire on the highway. Texas is facing the worst yearlong draught on record, and this fire goes to show how easy it is for the littlest thing to spark another fire elsewhere.
2. It's spreading like mad. Numerous smaller fires have sprouted up and are spreading all over the place, pushed by strong winds and fed by dry grass, shrubs, and trees. It's currently moving south and expanding.
3. It can jump rivers. It jumped the Colorado River in two spots. Apparently this super fire is resistant to water, or is just so big that its tentacles can stretch over large bodies of water.
4. It's zero percent contained. ZERO. None of it is contained. Which means the state needs to get way more crews out there fighting it than they have already. Not an easy task when the entire state is smoking.
5. Fire officials are stumped on how to fight it. They don't know where it started, they don't know where the "eipicenter" is, they don't know where it ends. One official was quoted saying: “We will be working days on end. The fire is so dynamic we really have no idea where it is.”
Image via GalgenTX/Flickr
Source : thestir
