Local firefighters help fight wildfires across Texas

Sunrise Monday provided a clear view of the fire lines that continued to burn in Palo Pinto and Sutton counties. Hotspots that burned overnight are being attacked from the air and on the ground. I just need your eyes. Do you see anything? Travis County is the one chief Donnie Norman is leading the 196 strike team that's been assembled by the Texas Forest Service this year. Last week, he wrapped up an eight day assignment on the big 90,000 acre plays just west of Fort Worth. When I was on the Ross fire, I strike team number 1 86 and then the strike team that I'm at right now, which is has five engines, a water tender strike team leader, which is myself and 21 personnel. Chief Norman is part of a larger deployment, totaling 634 personnel. I have three E. S. D. One guys on my engine. I have one trainee that that we brought on from our Liberty Hill Fire Department. So they're on our engines. I have four personnel that's on one of my engines. We have a fire. That's just a little bit east of here. I've got four people there, but in totality, E. S. D. One's got 15 people deployed in different locations in different roles throughout the state with 15 people gone. Um, what are we doing at home? And how is home protected? Yeah, so we are minimum staffing is not affected at home at all. So the state of Texas actually pays us to deploy our personnel, and then they also pay to backfill every one of those positions that we have back at home. So operations at home is no different today with us having 15 people deployed as it will be in a month from now, hopefully when the rain comes in and and we get back to some sense of normalcy, 34 fire suppression aircraft brought in by the state are providing the only predictable relief from the sky. But it is very coordinated, and you know, it's impressive to be right up against you within just a short distance away from a 7 37 flying low coming over top of us. And those are very skilled pilots. The state is still in the process of assembling its own firefighting Air Force. Earlier this year, two helicopters and three spotter aircraft were purchased. The acquisition of four large tankers that's currently in the procurement process for Strike Team 1 96. A washing machine is the procurement that they're looking forward to. None of us have done laundry for the last few days as trivial as that may be. But you you're hot, you're sweaty eso. So we hope to get a little bit of rehab time. But I suspect that with the low humidity, high temps wind is coming in. It would not surprise me if we're not assigned to another fire or to, you know, shortly after we come off of the South Day fire, we make ourselves available again.