Kidd said Bastrop County and the state of Texas should be prepared to control the fires for the next seven to 10 days.
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Bastrop County officials said residents of about 400 homes have been advised to evacuate since the fire began Tuesday. “We don’t know exactly how that’s going to be but my instructions earlier on the safety of those firefighters was to take all those things into consideration”, Fisher said.
As of 8 p.m. Thursday, the four TXARNG aviation crews flew almost 50 hours and dropped almost 700,000 gallons of water that they loaded into their Bambi Buckets from local lakes and ponds.
About 25 percent of the fire was contained as of Thursday, after the blaze quadrupled in size in one day. Investigators also said they believe the fire was started by a farmer who was involved in a process called shredding. For updates on evacuations and affected areas, follow the Bastrop County Office of Emergency Management’s Hidden Pines fire event page on facebook. A smaller single engine air tanker dropped retardant on the area Thursday. At least nine homes have been destroyed.
Bastrop County officials hope the arrival of a cool front over the weekendwill help slow the advance of the fire. Temperatures approached 93 degrees around Austin on Thursday, flirting with a record high for mid-October.
While firefighters work to contain the Hidden Pines Fire, many sought comfort from the fire and smoke under the Friday night lights. The woodedarea where the firefighters are battling the blaze was once mostly grassland with a scattering of Juniper trees known asa “fire-dependent ecosystem” thatrelied on natural fires to stem vegetation growth, said Kari Hines, wildland urban interface specialist at Texas A&M Forest Service.
Officials say that the blaze is being fueled by unseasonably hot weather along with gusty and shifting winds. “This has to be an echo of a nightmare that they faced just a few years ago”.
“This is a day of transition for Bastrop County”, Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape said at a news conference Friday morning, referring to the aircraft assistance and the troublesome winds.
Bastrop County was beset with wildfires in 2011 that destroyed more than 1,600 homes and caused $325 million in insured losses.
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Because of that, they say property owners are safer than in 2011.
