April 2011 Texas Wildfires [GALLERY]

[Meatpie]

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A home under construction that just missed the damage from wildfires near Possum Kingdom Lake. There is now growing fear that this wildfire may get as far as Fort Worth - one of Texas' largest cities with nearly 750,000 residents.

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The Texas Forest Service undertook a series of 'controlled burns' at the weekend to get rid of fuel on the mountains around McDonald Observatory, seen right

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A running wildfire encroaches on a large home in Strawn, Texas. Dozens of area homes have been destroyed in the wildfires

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Texas State Troopers Aaron Lewis and Greg Sullivan open a gate to allow livestock to escape in Graford as smoke billows out behind them. Texas usually receives up to 15 inches of rain a year but in the last six months it has seen just 13-hundredths of an inch in the west of the state.


Texas firefighters continue to battle blazes that have scorched a million acres and have been burning for more than a week, according to the Texas Forest Service.


170 homes have been destroyed.

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[metalmachine]

:(

In Spain, many fires are caused by firefighters (to work) and also by speculators who are interested in building on that land. The bad thing is sometimes other firefighters and people die

[mbly]

Great pics! Here in Oz, this type of fire is very frequent and having been thru one myself a few years back, I understand the devastation they cause!

[Meatpie]

Weather forecast for Texas is more drought. Is this unusual time of the year for a drought?

[Fideliodemo]

No, their rainy season is March - May and like a number of places, there simply is less rain falling now. The area between El Paso/Midland-Odessa and Abilene/San Antonio is a whole lot of nothing. Dry and hot and a perfect place for wildfires to spread unabated for miles and miles. The fires will clear the area of the fuel spawning them on now, but anything in their way do not really stand a chance.