Massive Spicewood-Pedernales Bend fire of 2011 sparked by power lines touching in high wind
SPICEWOOD — A Labor Day weekend fire last year that scorched 6,500 acres and destroyed more than 60 structures was caused by arcing electrical or phone lines pushed together by high winds, investigators said.
The massive blaze, officially classified as the 2011 Pedernales Wildland Fire, has been ruled “accidental in nature,” according to a release Aug. 29 from Travis County Fire Marshal Hershel Lee.
The ruling comes on the eve of the first anniversary of one of the worst disasters in recent Highland Lakes history.
The fire, first reported about 2 p.m. Sept. 4, 2011, originated about 1,000 feet from the 26200 block of Haynie Flat Road. It took dozens of departments from across Texas until Sept. 15 to finally extinguish the blaze in the Spicewood-Pedernales Bend corridor.
Thousands were evacuated, Spicewood Elementary School closed down and Texas 71 was shut to traffic. No fatalities were reported; damages to property are estimated at close to $5 million, officials said.
Investigators looked at burn patterns, spoke to witnesses and made several “site visits to identify the probable ignition sequence and rule out other causes of the fire,” according to the fire marshal’s release.
A fire investigation team has “determined that a probable ignition source involved electrical lines, located above the area of the fire’s origin. The investigation shows that the lines came into contact with either each other or the low-voltage phone lines directly below,” the release said.
A combination of brisk winds of 17-24 mph, high temperatures reaching 108 degrees and low humidity created a recipe for disaster, officials said.
The team’s probe “shows that this contact (of the lines) caused arcing on the line and created hot molten material that fell to the ground. Investigators determined that this ignition source ignited the dry combustible grass below,” as well as dry and dead trees.
The region was in the grip of a drought that started in October 2010, drastically lowering lake levels and intake flows, and which continues today.
The lines are owned by the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, but utility officials said they are still reviewing the information.
“PEC officials have received the Travis County fire marshal’s report, which is not conclusive in regards to the Spicewood fire’s cause,” said Kay Jarvis, a PEC spokeswoman. “The report recognizes there were a number of factors that may have contributed to the fire, including extreme drought, hot temperatures, high winds and low humidity. The report will be considered in an ongoing investigation.”
Jarvis, who said PEC covers an 8,100-square-mile service area, encourages “all members to report any conditions they consider unsafe and potentially hazardous.”
The fire proved difficult to control, according to investigators.
“(The Pedernales Fire Department) was the first Travis County agency to arrive on scene,” the report added. “They found a fast-moving brush fire extending from an area about 100 yards from Haynie Flat Road and heading south and west.”
At the same time firefighters battled that blaze, several other wildfires broke out across Central Texas, including a 100-acre blaze in Smithwick and another in Bastrop now classified as the worst single wildfire in Texas history.
That conflagration torched 34,000 acres, destroyed 1,691 structures and left two dead.
HIgh winds toppled trees into power lines, sparking the blaze, officials said.
Prior to the Spicewood fire, the worst disaster in recent Highland Lakes history was a major flood June 26-27, 2007, when a “rain bomb” dumped up to 19 inches on Burnet County, flooding Marble Falls, destroying businesses, shutting down the city’s main water line for five days and closing RR 1431 East for weeks. Two men in a vehicle were swept into a rain-swollen creek in east Burnet County; one man’s body has never been recovered.