When we think of wildfires, our first thought seems to be of California. Over the last couple of decades, that state has had a serious issue with wildfires. Those wildfires have burned hundreds of thousands of acres and destroyed just as many homes. Texas will see issues with wildfires, too, with a big one burning in Central Texas right now.

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Fire crews are battling a massive wildfire in the Bastrop area of Central Texas. So far, the fire has burned nearly 700 acres included about 150 acres of Bastrop State Park where the fire started. The wildfire began as a scheduled prescribed burn in the state park. Officials started the burn with weather conditions that were safe to burn under. However, shortly after the burn began, spotting began outside of the of the planned burn area, possibly started by embers blown from the burn.

As of a news conference yesterday (Tuesday, January 18), the fire had burn about 640 acres with 250 families being evacuated from their homes in the Bastrop area. As of this morning (Wednesday, January 19), 30% of fire had been contained by firefighters and 783 acres had burned.

Firefighters from across the state, including firefighters from Texas A&M and the Cy-Fair Wildland Paramedic Unit, are battling the fire at this time. No deaths or major injuries have been reported, either.

This is the second big wildfire to hit the Bastrop area in a decade. In 2011, the area was hit with a fire that destroyed about 1,600 homes and burned 50 square miles of land. Carnage from that fire was captured in a couple of videos.

Say a prayer this evening for these firefighters and residents as they deal with and fight this Texas wildfire.

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