Woods fires reignite mere yards from one another

September 18, 2023

At 3:17 Monday afternoon, Kirbyville Volunteer Fire Department was called out to 1028 Cr 459 for a small woods fire. Once they arrived, however, there were actually two fires that had to be taken care of.

Kirbyville Police Sergeant and Kirbyville fireman, Josh Hancock said that the two locations that burned today were reignitions from fires in that same location last week.

Hancock explained, "We had a good bit of rain last week, but it wasn't nearly enough to get us out of danger. You can take a firetruck and pump out 100 gallons of water on the ground, but once you stop and rake across the top of the dirt, it will still be dry. It takes a good while for the vegetation to absorb the water, so even a decent amount of rain might not be enough to do a lot of good. There is still so much fuel (dry vegetation) that the least spark can start a fire, and that's what happened here. The roots from last week's fires were still smoldering. The dry vegetation fell on the hot spots and it reignited".

As instructed during the fire storms a couple of weeks ago, we were told to not report smoke, only flames because departments were stretched thin on active fires. Now that the stress of constant fires is somewhat behind us, the instructions have changed a bit. Hancock said to please report smoke when you first see it. Departments are now better able to head off any major issues we could face.

Hancock closed by saying that the burn bans are still ongoing. No outside burning of any kind until further notice.