Fire in SW Amarillo

[Jason Boggs]

At about 3:00 pm a large fire started in SW Amarillo. As it is right now, one mobile home has been confirmed to be destroyed. The TX forest service has a helicopter releasing retardant to try to contain the fire. Roads around the SW part of the city are closed down for obvious reasons. Winds are sustained here at 37mph (gusting to 50) with a Td of 8 which gives us a RH of about 6%. Temp is 83 so this isn't helping much either.


EDIT: 3 structures have now been destroyed.



Here is the latest report from the NWS:

NWUS54 KAMA 161228
LSRAMA

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AMARILLO TX
727 AM CDT SUN APR 16 2006

..TIME.. ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE.. ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION.. ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0300 PM WILDFIRE 9 SW AMARILLO 35.11N 101.93W
04/15/2006 RANDALL TX NEWSPAPER

WILDFIRE STARTED NEAR SONCY ROAD AND WEST 81ST AVENUE
AND BURNED 42 ACRES. ONE MOBILE HOME...FIVE
OUTBUILDINGS...AND THREE VEHICLES WERE DESTROYED. ONE
FIREFIGHTER WAS INJURED. HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WERE
EVACUATED.

&&

$$

KJS

WWWW
**********************************************************************

 

[Kenny Drake]

Yea another bad in the southern plains. I was noticing per Mesonet that a few stations topped out just over 100F between 4 and 5pm CDT with Td's around 15F. OK/TX need rain, hopefully a few good soakings come in the next few weeks. At this point I'm down to hoping, because GFS long range doesnt show any sort of change in this longwave ridge over the country.

 

[David Drummond]

Maybe Jason or Jay can update us. From I could gather, parts of SW Amarillo were evactuated and several structures were lost. I lived out just west of this area south of Bushland for a while myself. There evidently was another fire just east of Bushland, which is on I40 west of Amarillo.

There was another huge fire burning out of control in SE Donley County, which is Carendon, NW of Childress. I understand it was threatening a feed yard and some homes as well.

There wereTWO fires in Lubbock that claimed a couple of homes.

And yet another fire west of Lubbock in Hockley County who has already been subjected to several LARGE wildfires this year!