Wildfires erupt in Texas: Why the risk of blazes is so high there

Wildfires erupted in Texas on Tuesday afternoon in San Patricio County, and in Buda, a town just south of Austin. Strong winds have knocked out power to more than 20,000 customers.

Earlier in the day, the National Weather Service updated red flag warnings to include a large swath of southern Texas, as high winds roared through the state bringing elevated risk of wildfires.

“Dangerous, potentially historic, extreme fire weather conditions are forecast Tuesday across our area,” the NWS Austin/San Antonio office said in a post on social media. “Very strong winds and low humidity will support the rapid spread and difficult suppression of any wildfires that may ignite. Avoid activities that could cause a wildfire!”

In a Monday order, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to ready additional emergency response teams “in anticipation of extremely critical wildfire danger.”

Travis County Judge Andy Brown on Monday signed a Declaration of Local Disaster after meteorologists forecast dangerous extreme fire weather conditions on Tuesday. Under the disaster declaration, a burn ban is in effect for all areas of Travis County, including areas within city limits.

In Austin, a county judge signed a disaster declaration Monday night ahead of the red flag conditions.

“Under the Disaster Declaration, a Burn Ban is in effect for all areas of Travis County, including areas within city limits,” the city of Austin wrote in a press release. Austin, the release noted, “ranks sixth in the nation in number of homes at risk of wildfire.”

Despite the fact that Austin saw a light amount of rain Tuesday morning, the red flag conditions persisted, in part because Central Texas has been in the grip of a drought for several years. Possible wind gusts of between 40 to 50 mph were also forecast across much of the state, and the NWS issued a high wind warning for most locations.

Why is the risk of wildfires increasing in Texas?

While California most often comes to mind when people think of wildfires, recent wildfires in the Northeast and the Carolinas have shown that, thanks in part to changing climate conditions, blazes can break out in many parts of the country.

That’s long been true of Texas, which is second to California in terms of the number of wildfires recorded each year and which records more acres burned than any other state.

“The expanding threat of wildfires to Texas communities is a result of the state’s ever-changing land use, climate and population,” Texas A&M Forest Service states on its website. “Many Texas communities are within or are growing into the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). The WUI is an area where people and their homes meet or mix with wildland vegetation.”

With its rapidly expanding population, there are 14,500 communities at risk of wildfire in Texas, Texas A&M Forest Service said. Between 2005 and 2022, 231,253 wildfires burned 12,454,769 acres in Texas, data compiled by the forest service shows. Those blazes have resulted in dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage, Environment Texas reported.

Growing problem

Warmer average temperatures caused by the continued burning of fossil fuels are increasing the number of fire-prone days in communities across the country, data from Climate Central shows.

“Three of the top states with the greatest number of households in the WUI also saw an increase in fire weather days during the period of Climate Central’s analysis: California, Texas, and North Carolina,” Climate Central said.

Higher temperatures increase evaporation in vegetation, making them that much drier and more flammable.

As has been seen this week in Texas and the Carolinas, the combination of low relative humidity, warm air temperatures and wind can elevate underlying conditions, making the risk of wildfires that much greater.