Texas Governor Rick Perry asked for additional help from the federal government as they battle against wildfires in their state. At least six houses in Austin have caught fire last Sunday and a few more hundreds are threatened to suffer from the same demise.
Around 1.5 million acres of grasslands and brushes have caught fire in Texas starting January 1st; half of that has gone up in flames only in the past week wherein Texas is experiencing its driest condition in the state’s history. A total of 220 houses have burned down since the wildfires started and a firefighter was killed in Eastland, Texas just this Friday.
Flames blazed rather fiercely the past few weeks in West Texas and Governor Perry admitted in one of his statements that Texas is almost running out of resources to deal with emergencies and they are already in need of federal assistance in order to put out the fire more quickly.
On Sunday afternoon, 80 acres of juniper and oak woodlands in Austin have been charred. Averages of 10 houses were destroyed just mere hours after the fire started. Cargo planes from the Air Force dumped fire retardants in the area. There were also helicopters in the area for water-dropping.
The fires have forced hundreds of people from rural areas of Texas to move across the state. However, Austin is still the most heavily populated city that could be in huge trouble.
