Posted on 12/27/2005 2:14:07 PM PST by indcons
Prayin' for you here in OK!
*Blush*
I've only been there once... Arlington, Tx. is all I recall.
I was able to reach my brother inlaw at work a while back. He went home to protect the place, but I haven't heard anything since.
Thank you very much for the local report.
I know the smell. Yuk!
Tinder dry and fireworks is not a good proposition. It takes some brainpower to not burn the neighborhood down.
We're getting pretty wet here, we'll send some your way.
Have a good holiday!
Give Jack a pat from me and the cats.
DFW area fires in Joshua, Grandbury, Colleyville, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Arlington, Kennedale.
Oh man...very scary. Reminds me of the Oakland Hills fire, but the people there were trapped by tiny little one lane roads.
Luckily this shouldn't end up on the scale of that one. These are mainly in the outlying areas, bordering large fields or multi-acre lots, and its relatively flat so there are usually plenty of roads (harder to get trapped.) Colleyville is an interior suburb, but it has a lot of large wooded lots and horse farms.
For all that have posted good luck to me...thank you!
My DIL's father lives in Kennedale..and was closer than me..but he said it was moving away from where he lives..
We had taken in our hoses a couple weeks ago..when it was 16 degrees, in order to put covers on the faucets...dang, I wish the weather would decide what season it is!
If you talk to your relatives...let me know what part of Arlington the live in...so I will know whether to be on alert that a freeper family member needs help..
My friends/neighbors heard fireworks outside last night. I must have been asleep. We're among a lot of trees here, so I worry...but they will rescue Jack if I'm not home and something happens.
Jack loves kitties by the way. :)
Please do send that rain our way.
Keep an eye on the news tonight. They did say that when the sun goes down the wind will subside which will help them contain the fires.
Almost all of north and west Texas are under a red flag warning.
...on the phone w/ sister...
Her house is fine so far.
East side of 87.
Southern tip of Arlington...
Her friend's house is on fire...
She sees a fire across the freeway...
... stinks...
...
I told her about the prayers here at FR and she said "Thank you very much."
I hope the wind is not blowing towards her house, because embers can be blown a long way.
i do live here in arlington. i have seen the smoke and have heard the fire engines going by my apartment complex for a good while this afternoon.
Thank you for the local report.
Stay well!
West Texas ping
My husband's brother lives in Mustang. What part is on fire?
It started behind (north of) the walmart and the west wind blew it east all the way to Morgan road.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/13494959.htm
Wildfires raging through North Texas
Star-Telegram Staff
Fire officials are urging residents to stay close to home, have fire hoses at the ready, obey the burn ban and refrain from tossing cigarettes out the window. The warnings came after a second harrowing day of dozens of grass fires throughout North Texas.
Late Tuesday afternoon, firefighters finally contained a huge grass fire that burned about 200 acres near U.S. 287 and Sublett Road in Kennedale and southwest Arlington, officials said.
Three Arlington firefighters were taken to the hospita, suffering from smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion, said Arlington Fire Department Battalion Chief David Stapp. No other injuries had been reported.
The blaze, which broke out around 2 p.m., was among the largest of dozens that burned across North Texas, fanned by high winds and fed by drought-stricken grasses.
Another huge fire burned on the Hood-Johnson county line, forcing residents of two subdivisions rom their homes.
Gov. Rick Perry's office declared a state of emergency and National Guard helicopters and air tankers were en route to North Texas to help.
When Arlington firefighters arrived at the Kennedale-Arlington fire around 3 p.m., they found a “wall of flames” 30 to 40 feet high, Stapp said.
"It looked like the world was on fire," he said.
In Kennedale, three homes and a hay-filled barn were destroyed, Mayor Jim Norwood said. Two Arlington apartment complexes were evacuated.
About 5:30 p.m., firefighters were cleaning up hot spots but had contained most of the blaze.
With "red-flag" fire warnings in effect throughout the area, officials were begging the public to be careful.
Drought, high winds and unseasonably warm temperatures have conspired to create an extreme danger for wildfires. Tarrant County has seen 18.97 inches of rain. The normal level is 34.44 inches by Dec. 27.
“We’ve got to have the public’s help. For the foreseeable future they must be extremely careful with any kind of flame,” said Lt. Kent Worley, Fort Worth fire spokesman. “It’s going to be this way for several months. It would take a nice good rain over multiple days to take care of this.”
In the Steeplechase Estates neighborhood in Kennedale, homeowners grabbed hoses and watered fences and brushy areas in an effort to stop the spreading flames.
Around 4:30 p.m., Arlington firefighters were fighting a blaze west of Texas 360 and south of Eden Road, several miles south of the Tarrant County College Southeast Campus. Three mobile homes and two other structures were damaged or destroyed, according to emergency radio traffic.
As of 5 p.m., 24 small fires had been reported in Arlington, plus two large ones: The southwest Arlington blaze and another near Green Oaks Boulevard and Pioneer Parkway, which was extinguished at 4:30.
In Fort Worth, firefighters had battled 23 flareups by 3:15 p.m. Most were small enough to be contained by the originally responding firefighting teams, Worley said.
The majority were alongside busy roadways rather than in neighborhoods and were spread throughout the city, with a few more in the wide-open spaces of far west and far south Fort Worth, Worley said.
Worley said firefighters are hoping that the forecast of no rain through the weekend is accurate. A light rain would do nothing to soak the grass but would muddy the ground, hindering fire-fighting efforts.
A dispatcher said Tuesday afternoon that several agencies are battling two big grass fires: one on Farm Road 1189 and Wolf Hollow in south Parker County, the other in the Blue Bonnet Hills area.
Officials were evacuating the Canyon Creek subdivision between Granbury and Glen Rose because of a fast-moving grass fire. Residents were also evacuated from the Lakeside Hills subdivision in Granbury, NBC 5 reported.
Lt. Billy Henderson, a spokesman for the Hood County Sheriff’s Department, said the entire Canyon Creek subdivision is engulfed. He did not have details on how many homes were involved or how many have been destroyed.
In a three-hour span, from 11:30 to 3:30 p.m., the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department received 31 reports of grass fires.
“They have just killed us since about noon,” said Sgt. Donna Young, supervisor over dispatch for the sheriff’s department. “We’ve been extremely busy since then. It’s been crazy.”
At 3:30 p.m., there had been no reports of house fires, but several buildings had burned, Young said.
Young said at least 25 acres have burned at the Excell Ranch Estates, a rural subdivision made up mostly of mobile homes west of Joshua.
Another 15 acres were burning around Quail Run, another rural subdivsion near the Tarrant-Johnson County lines, she said.
In Colleyville, a house and a back yard shed were destroyed by a grass fire. No one was injured.
A city official said that the fire may have started from power line sparks.
New fires reported in Irving (near Texas Stadium), S. Dallas, Kaufman Co., Boyd, Cresson, and Grandbury.
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