As of today, the news said over 700,000 acres had been burned and 11 lives lost. No mention of how many livestock lost. This is primarily the Texas Panhandle statistics. We're about 20 miles South of the worst of the fires that were along I-40. Childress area, about 30 miles South of us reported about 65,000 acres burned. Wind supposed to be up again tomorrow. "Slight" chance of rain (as usual) this weekend.
We feel very sorry for all the people and their ranches that have burned out. No hay in the area. Not sure what will happen to those people...unless some of the other States start shipping hay to those people. We're keeping our fingers crossed and prayers that fires don't come around here...however, there are still idiots that toss cigarettes out vehicles and others that are careless with sparks.
Essentially Texas and Okla is under a burning ban (obviously!). No outdoor welding, BBQ grills, etc., etc. allowed lest you get fined heavily (or shot by one's neighbors) if a fire breaks out.
We're a long way from being out of the woods yet!
On Sunday I-40 was shut down for about 90 miles between Amarillo and Shamrock due to smoke, fires, wrecks. All that traffic was re-routed via US 287 and US 83 (in front of our place)...looked like Dallas during rush hour. During that I-40 shutdown there was about a 700 vehicle line in the Clarendon (US 287) area gradually getting onto a 2-lane road heading East.
