Wildfire scorches eastern Burnet County
A closer look at the aftermath of the 300-acre fire that broke out near the city of Bertram on the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 9. Staff photo by Caden Senn
An approximately 300-acre fire burned across eastern Burnet County for more than 32 hours this week before local emergency personnel were able to control and extinguish the blaze on the evening of Monday, Aug. 10. The flames were believed to have been caused by an open debris burn.
According to Burnet County Emergency Management Coordinator Ed Hashbarger, emergency personnel were toned out to the scene of a fire at around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 9, near Saxon Lane and RM 243, about 3.5 miles northeast of downtown Bertram.
The blaze engulfed nearby dry foliage and grew to roughly 300 acres by the morning of Monday, Aug. 10, as emergency personnel worked to contain the fire. Hashbarger told DailyTrib that at around 10 p.m. on Monday, the fire had been completely contained.
In a media statement, Hashbarger said that the cause of the fire was determined to be “open debris burning.”
Burnet County has been under a burn ban since July 28, prohibiting outdoor burning of things like debris and brush. Hashbarger told DailyTrib that fires like these are the reason why adhering to the ban is so important.
“The burn ban is on for a reason, and we do our due diligence to make sure it needs to be on,” he said. “This is a cautionary tale of why we put them on. We have the burn ban for a reason, and these are the things that can happen if people do not adhere to it.”
Burnet County has been exceptionally dry as of late, registering on Tuesday, Aug. 11, in the third-worst drought category of the Keetch-Byram Drought Index. The KBDI is used by the county to determine how dry the area is on a scale of 0-800, with Burnet County registering at 525.