I hear a firetruck...or twenty.

The severe drought is starting to take a toll on our state. It is basically a giant haystack. Add a slight spark....instant tinder box.

Currently: no rain for months + hot sun + high winds = fires breaking out all over Austin and spreading quickly.

Hardest hit in the near Austin area:
Steiner ranch (for anyone familiar with Central Texas) = 25 *expensive* homes burned
Bastrop (lots of piney woods, aka "hay" to burn) = 476 homes destroyed and 25,000 acres burned
Pflugerville (my hood) = 2 houses burned in a nearby neighborhood, less than 3 miles away. Lckily, firefighters were able to keep it from jumping the road into a higher populated area and over to us.

Not sure the state can take much more of this. There has even been a call for retired firefighters to help as the resources are almost tapped out.

No one is safe from instant fires!

Blip orientation: The red dot is about where I'm located. Red = today's fires, Yellow = left over fires they are still battling. Note, all the fires are where heavily populated cities are: Austin, Dallas/Ft Worth, which means there are lots of acres in west Texas that have potential to burn!