By Bill Miller
Fort Worth Star Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas — As wildfires rage near San Diego, firefighters in Texas are on standby, but not to assist on the West Coast.
Tinder-dry conditions and fierce winds have produced red-flag warnings in the Texas Hill Country and other parts of Texas, Traci Weaver, spokeswoman for the Texas Forest Service office in Granbury, said Tuesday.
“With all that rain we’ve had over the summer there is a lot of vegetation out there,” Weaver said. “Now we have these fronts coming in with dry, hot air.”
Weaver said it is unlikely that Texas firefighters will have to help fight fires in California.
The first to assist there are firefighters and their equipment from the state where the fires are burning, Weaver said. Next are the crews included in the multi-state region around that state, according to strategies coordinated by the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
Texas, Weaver said, is not in the region that includes California.
But it’s not totally certain that Texas wildfire crews would never go to California, she said.
“We want to make sure we have everything covered here,” Weaver said.
The red flag warning for Central Texas was scheduled to be in effect from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service office in San Antonio.
Likewise, the agency’s office in Fort Worth has issued a hazardous weather outlook for North Texas.
Although a cold front brought rain showers Monday to North Texas, the moisture is quickly drying as swift winds roll through the region at 15 to 20 mph, weather service officials said Tuesday.
“It’s elevated fire danger, but not critical fire danger, which is what red flag is talking about,” said Dan Shoemaker, a meteorologist at the agency’s Fort Worth office.
“The fire fuels are the grass, which has quit growing, so it’s drying out,” he added. “It wouldn’t be a good thing to throw the cigarette out the window of the car.”
Copyright 2007 Fort Worth Star-Telegram