Texas Snowman wrote:Looking at the news and photos coming out of Colorado Springs about the Waldo Canyon wildfire, it got me to thinking about the wildfires in Texas last summer.
Especially the Bastrop Complex wildfire. So I went to Wikipedia to check out the final numbers. They were and still are just staggering to me:
"1,691 homes were destroyed by the fire, making it the most destructive single wildfire in Texas history. After being largely contained in late September, the fire was finally declared controlled on October 10, and declared extinguished on October 29, having killed two people and inflicted an estimated $325 million of insured property damage."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastrop_Co ... mplex_fire
Nearly 1,700 homes destroyed by a single wildfire is staggering even by West Coast standards.
I'll never forget Tropical Storm Lee for that, the dry lee-side of Lee (
) caused a complete catastrophe here over Labor Day Weekend.Here in DFW, I'll always remember April 2011, when those powerful low pressure systems that brought all the tornadoes to the Southeast came through here dry, with 50mph winds whipping in smoke from the west. I've never seen anything like it, all the smoke and cement dust and fertilizer dust flying through the air at 50mph, the sun gray behind the haze, the campfire/chemical smell, and how the horrible air quality seemed to ignite a primitive instinct that put everybody I met on edge and in a bad mood. I hope we don't ever have something like that here again.
Yeah,
Same ole same ole. 
I've already accepted our fate. That means the next time I'm complacent about heavy rain moving in (like "whatever, yeah right"), we'll probaby get a flood! If we could be so lucky.
I think the outflow screwed us over once again with its subsequent stabilization. The silver lining is that it was only 88 degrees at 4pm when I was out, instead of 109! 
