Wildfires Burn 3 Dozen Homes Across Texas

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Firefighters in Texas are attempting to contain more wildfires after several blazes broke out across the state and destroyed more than three dozen homes.

Hundreds of people were told to evacuate June 19 after fires swept through eastern and central parts of the state. Most of Texas is under a red flag warning, which means there is an extreme risk of fire. Since November, more than 3 million acres have burned statewide.

Most of the wildfires — including a 15,000-acre blaze — were in forested East Texas, where heavy shade usually keeps the ground more moist and humidity is generally higher than in other parts of the state, said Texas Forest Service spokesman Richard Reuse.

Fires are more common in hot and arid West Texas, though severe drought conditions are gripping most of the state. “We’ve been watching East Texas continue to dry out,” Reuse said.

Temperatures reached around 100 degrees in the area, with south winds of 20 mph and strong wind gusts, said Brian Kyle, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Houston.

Kyle said such conditions were unusual for the area, which normally runs about 10 degrees cooler this time of year and is usually not as windy.

The 15,000-acre blaze — among the largest ever recorded in East Texas — was mostly in Trinity County, between Huntsville and Lufkin, and was about 40 percent contained as of Sunday night. Since the blaze began on June 17, it has destroyed two unoccupied homes and at least four trailers.

At least 30 homes burned in a 3,600-acre fire in Grimes County near the community of Stoneham, about 60 miles northwest of Houston, Forest Service spokeswoman Rae Brooks said. As of Sunday evening, the fire was at no containment and a nearby area had been evacuated, Brooks said. She did not know the number of homes evacuated.

In Central Texas, at least seven mobile homes were burned in a 150-acre Kendall County fire that also led to mandatory evacuations of a subdivision and a park for recreation vehicles, Reuse said.

Forest Service officials said that part of Interstate 45 was closed Sunday afternoon because of a 1,000-acre fire in Walker County that led authorities to issue a mandatory evacuation of 200 homes in the community of Midway. There were no containment figures on that fire late Sunday, though the interstate had reopened by early evening, according to a local sheriff’s dispatcher.

Brooks said other areas where people were advised to evacuate included about 500 homes in two subdivisions near Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Jasper County. The 2,500-acre fire threatening the subdivisions was about 25 percent contained. It had already destroyed six camp houses.

Forest Service spokesman Ralph Cullom said the 15,000-acre fire started Friday afternoon east of Groveton in Polk County and then moved into Trinity County. He said it has burned into parts of the Davy Crockett National Forest and on private woodland.

The fire is being called the “Bearing Fire” because it started after a person hauling a trailer pulled off the road with a hot wheel bearing, which ignited dry grass nearby, Cullom said.

Groveton is a town of about 1,100 people roughly 100 miles north of Houston, he said.