Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 1
Let's call up item 1 first.
1 is consider and take appropriate action on an order regarding outdoor burning in the unincorporated areas of Travis County.
we've got emergency services, fire marshal's office here with us.
and they need to get back to work.
they've been working on those since Sunday.
I think that first fire started about 10:00 a.m.
Sunday morning so I know they've been working pretty much around the clock since that time.
we want to thank them and all the other firefighters and emergency responders.
I was at ctecc Sunday night and a variety of folk with a variety of backgrounds, but trying to deal with the emergency situations we were confronted with at that time.
so if you would introduce yourself, we would be happy to hear from you.
>> go ahead.
>> tony calloway with the Travis County fire marshal's office.
thank you, judge, Commissioners.
in reference to the current outdoor burn ban, it expires September 21st.
we do strongly recommend that we keep that in place.
in reference to our doubt index, we're currently at an average of 783 and that's measured on a scale from zero to 800 in units.
there are portions of the county that are at 790.
unfortunately there's no forecasted rain over the next ten days, and where that plays utmost importance is in reference to humidity.
our humidity level has been dipping down into the teens.
with the humidity level dropping as low as it has been, the drought we're currently in which is an exceptional drought category in Texas, and the high winds we've within having between constant winds of 10 to 20 miles an hour with gusting winds of 20 to 30 miles an hour it's put us in a perfect storm.
winds have died down to 3 to 5 miles an hour and that's one of the major components taken out of that perfect storm, however, we don't see any signs of the humidity level increasing much more than where it's at now.
each afternoon, once again, it drops into the teens and that's why we're in a critical state.
there is nothing we can do obviously in reference to the moisture content in the ground that we currently have.
we're not going to have any green-up or anything else occur in the mechanics month.
once again we strongly recommend that.
the fire that you've seen in the news, the majority of those fires have been a factor directly related to the weather conditions.
and that's why we have seen an increase over this last 48 hours in fires.
many people are asking, we've had a drought, been in a drought for six months, why all of a sudden is it happening now, why are we having 6,000 acres fires, why are we having 600, 700-acre fires and it was directly related we believe due to the weather conditions.
>> normally in a fire like this, I guess you try to control or manage it first.
then when lives are no longer jeopardized and property I guess fairly safe, you turn to causation and try to figure out what caused the fires?
>> that is correct.
in reference to the two fires in Travis County that we've been dealing with, the one in pedernales, the spice wood fire, and the one at steiner ranch, we have been able to determine the area of origin which was quite difficult with the amount of damage and as quickly as it grew with the wind conditions.
we have made a preliminary, and I emphasize the word preliminary finding in the steiner ranch fire that it is most likely do you to line whip, with the overhead power lines and the gusting of winds, uninsulated wires coming together.
we have documented some evidence that we believe that caused to occur.
obviously we're going to have electrical engineers examine that closely.
it does match up with the area of origin.
we have determined the area of origin in the spicewood fire, however, we do not have a causation at that point.
the forestry service, Texas forestry service has been gracious to send professionals down that deal with this on a daily basis, unfortunately relocated them from midland.
we have staff from our office meeting with them currently and they will be assisting us in reexamining the burn patterns that we're seeing in the wild land interface fires we've been dealing with.
there were four or five hours in the e.s.d.
2 areas, a couple of significance that took many personnel to deal with, and those fires we're being told that those are most likely do to line whip as well.
once again, those are preliminary findings.
we're still interviewing witnesses and other factors.
911 calls are being analyzed and other things of that nature.
with all of them happening at once, some of that has been a challenge as far as people being evacuated.
sometimes difficult to find where those folks are and be able to interview them in a timely manner.
>> speaking of evacuation, our fire marshal, herschel lee, resides in an area that has been evacuated and when he returned home, he couldn't return home, I understand.
so -- but we want to wish him well and I guess safe recovery.
no property damage, hopefully.
but tough times.
anything else?
>> judge, I -- go ahead, Commissioner.
>> I have a series of questions.
first of all, what is the status of -- when you -- I actually saw people throwing cigarettes out of a vehicle yesterday.
I wrote down the license plate number.
do we have a ban on that?
>> I might be able to answer that a little bit.
I'm dan chapman, chief park ranger.
we have written a couple of tickets so far out on the public roads, the park rangers have.
we write it up as disposal solid waste but it's really littering.
if we see somebody throw a lit cigarette butt out the window we will pull them over and write a citation.
>> who should we contact if we see that occurring, if we have a plate number.
>> 911.
>> 911, okay.
>> if it actually ignites a fire, we can write a wreck list damage citation and what is important is restitution can be attached.
and we did issuej9vp couple citations yesterday.
we'll have to annual lies what the restitution is and obviously that will be up to the judge to set the total fine and collection.
when we're dealing with fires with this many resources responding, dollars add up quick and I think that's an important factor.
we have been very proud of the citizens of Travis County.
with the current situation that we're under, we ran very few calls due to negligence.
and that was one of the things we were looking into early on is what's causing these fires, make sure we get on top of that.
and I can say that we only had a few cases over a 72-hour period where there is negligence involved.
>> I actually live out in the spicewood fire area and my neighborhood was one of them that was given notice for evacuation night before last.
one of the things that I observed out there that I think is really important to get the message out because -- and I want to thank, first, I should say I want to thank all of you for all the hard work.
our resources have been spread so thin, but the fact that we get these fires under control doesn't eliminate this perfect storm that we have and we are likely to have more before we get relief.
one of the things that was occurring yesterday out in the spicewood area was the looky-loo people and 50 cars parked along the right-of-way along 71 at the crest of the hill looking towards reimers ranch and the lake.
every one of those has a catalytic converter, every one of those was parked on dry grass.
people are interested in seeing what's going on but I do not think that's what they should be doing.
they run a high risk of starting another fire.
the one thing I would like to bring up if I might, judge, as soon as this immediate high level task effort of our county people dies down, because we run such a high risk of additional fires, wildfires, one of the things that I would like to do or request is that we have a subcommittee of the court, perhaps you and me since the western Travis County side is where the biggest threat of these wildfires seems to be, to work with our staff and radio, television media to develop an emergency communications task force for wildfires because when we have our resources spread so thin, I think that there are other ways that we can plug information in to people who need to know.
I spent the last two day's working diligently with our list serves and our homeowners association that had emails, twitters, facebook, to get basic information out because the resources to get the information out in some places didn't seem to be as well lined up.
and I think that we need to be prepared for that better in the future and I would like to suggest that we have that task force set up to look at how to get more information.
>> Commissioner, very important point in reference to catalytic converters.
it's been our finding over the years catalytic converters are much more likely to start grass fires than cigarettes.
obviously we're spoiled in Texas with the high humidity that we've been complaining about, I don't think we'll be complaining about that for years to come n reference to some of the stuff in the news in reference to damage of homes, site assessments, our staff working closely with the sheriff's office has done a complete and site assessment of steiner ranch completed yesterday evening so we feel comfortable with the numbers released to the public in reference to complete loss of structures versus partial and damage.
visual photography has been accomplished and obviously we are checking for potential victims and one of the strong things in importance we have no recordings as of yet of any fatalities or any major injuries.
the injuries that have been sustained, unfortunately by firefighters, have been minor injuries.
due to many reasons, just the heat exhaustion.
the numbers sent out early on in reference to the spicewood fire, you'll see many different numbers on different reporting avenues, and I believe the difference in that is due to the term structure versus homes.
we were counting each and every structure and obviously we were counting single-family residential homes.
so when you see a number of 65 or 70, there's many parcels of land that had a single-family structure on it and might potentially have a barn or two of their accessory structures.
we're much closer to, I believe, the 30 count in reference to single-family homes lost in the spicewood area but we have not completed a site assessment, just the initial walk-through.
>> I have a question.
is it possible for someone in the organization to -- like in the spicewood fire where they were not getting really good on-site information because they were fighting the fire on so many different fronts and people were stretched to the maximum.
in western Travis County where we -- where it's spread out all over the place and the wind is moving the fire as fast as it was, is it possible to release to the media maps that show the gps hot spots that are known and wind trajectorys?
that would have given local residents a heads up for how high their risk might be they could assess for themselves.
>> yes, Commissioner, we could improve in reference to visual aids.
I believe visual aids are very important.
75% of the population would much rather look at a visual than words or audio.
unfortunately Sunday night the winds did shift slightly and it did change the direction of the fire on where it was spreading to in spicewood.
in addition to that coupled with the fact we had nightfall.
right when it was picking up, it became dark.
that limited to what we could do aerial support-wise, plus the aerial aircraft was concentrating so heavily on water drops.
we are so stripped in reference to that and really with the topography we're dealing with in spicewood, that was one of the large challenges was to be out there and see what was going on and the only way was aerial.
>> the only air was starflight, we had no state resources because of the high gusty winds.
>> pete baldwin, emergency services.
we had no air assets partially because most of the state aircraft is grounded when winds get above 25 miles an hour, however, they were flying but they were dedicated to other fires throughout the state.
>> of which there are many.
>> Sunday we had made requests to both the state for any air assets and also through the Texas interagency fire mutual aid system.
basically they were so stripped of resources, they said we have two engines in mineral wells, we'll send them.
so our only air assets have been starflight.
and for both Sunday and most of yesterday we had three aircraft up; however, yesterday we did hold one back in reserve.
Commissioner, back to that, I think that would be an excellent topic for us to discuss in that subcommittee meeting, you know, and -- because getting information out, by the time a lot of times you can post that, the fire has already moved.
>> that -- I want to say thank you because y'all have really worked hard at this.
I think that what we need to do is work with the public media to figure out how better to keep them up to date because we were watching information last night that was 24 hours old on some of the media sources.
>> correct.
>> and the other thing I would like to say real quickly, I know in far western Travis County many have gone to cell phones and not land lines, the reverse 911 does not work automatically on a cell phone.
everyone out there should go to the capcog.org website on the front page and sign your cell phone up for reverse 911.
that's the only way you are going to get it on your cell phone.
and I spent a good bit of time yesterday sending email blasts out to people.
they just don't know that, a lot of people.
>> it went through the canyonlands and the pro was there's very few homes, the con was some of the earlier reports were off by night fall and how fire looks at night.
I would like to applaud the Travis County sheriff's office and other peace officers doing evacuation.
obviously the fire service did a tremendous job in what they've been doing.
but the evacuation, the timeliness of the evacuation and being able to coordinate that with some of the challenges how the neighborhoods are laid out, I think they did a remarkable job in getting those folks out in a timely manner.
>> it was a tremendous coordination between 13 separate fire departments, tcso, the state, the park rangers, really, really was tremendous, particularly in light of what we know with regard to our statutorily fractured firefighting system in counties, that we do have so many separate departments.
I thank our predecessors to come up with ctecc.
ctecc made a massive difference because we did have a single location to coordinate all these various resources, although there's no doubt our resources were stretched so thin by noon on Sunday with three fires, not to mention having another fire on top of that.
I also understand there was a fire at burleson road that started up yesterday.
>> correct.
>> so why western Travis County certainly was in flames and is extremely difficult to contain because of topography, the conditions exist all over Texas, so we're seeing two fires in Pflugerville on Sunday morning, one in burleson Monday afternoon.
don't even have a heated argument outside.
I mean it is -- this is a perfect storm.
but for the reduction of the wind speed, we are still in those conditions.
>> would you all just briefly address how a fire travels up a canyon?
I think that would be useful for people in western Travis County.
if it gets in a canyon, I know the spicewood fire got in the river bed at the pedernales river and literally went up the dry river bed even though it wasn't necessarily the exact direction of the wind.
it might be helpful if people have a better understanding of that if they find themselves in that situation.
>> in wildfires fire does work its way up a hill.
in that canyon unfortunately we have a dry creek at this point and that only made the situation worse.
so as the wind pushed it down that canyon, many people have built their homes along what's normally a beautiful lake and so as it spread up the hill, which is a natural occurrence, it got into those homes.
and obviously once you have a fully engulfed home, that fuel load makes it very easy to travel into the higher canopies.
one of the things that's been our savior up to this point was the fact we have not had to this point really high winds in the 30-mile-an-hour range for long periods of time.
and in addition to that, because we've been in a drought so long, our ground fuels are almost gone.
we've gotten past the point of having dead grass.
now we have dead dirt.
to get from the lower fuel loads up to the upper canopies has taken some time and normally fire crews have been able to get on top of that.
in this situation obviously it got into the canopies just like in bastrop.
once you have fully involved trees and structures, the heat release is unbelievable.
you can't even -- you can't even predict what's going to happen.
it will jump from one house over the next house and hit the third house down.
>> I would like to go on and say based upon what all has been said here today regarding outdoor burning ban, the drought, the dry conditions, it would be our recommendation that Travis County file a disaster declaration immediately.
we have the resources to do that and that would be our recommendation.
>> explain to the public what disaster -- please explain that so folks will really understand the disaster declaration.
explain that to the public, please.
>> a disaster declaration is a request to the state who in turns makes a request to the federal government for assistance.
>> exactly.
>> in mitigating these fires.
it also helps with the reimbursement on some of the expenses.
there's a 75/25 percent split on that reimbursement.
and in doing so, there is a chance there may be some type of relief for individuals.
so that would be our recommendation.
>> and along with that, there was a lot of equipment that was lost as far as used by the firefighters trying to overcome this particular catastrophe.
and that equipment, of course, has to be replaced and so the big loss all across the board.
and again I think folks really need to take the time and be submissive to this particular burn ban because it's very important.
I even heard this morning that a person was out burning brush.
you know, after all of this someone is still out there burning brush, you know, just burning brush and not adhering to the burn ban.
so I just think that folks really need to be mindful of what's going on here.
of course, I would like to applaud each and every one of you guys for what you all do and the ladies and women involved in this, all the particular resources that did come together.
and it is devastating, folks, when you actually see what actually happens in these particular situations.
when you actually see a house that has been destroyed from these particular fires.
and as you stated, it gets up in the tree lines, it gets in the canopies and burns and before you know it it's jumped streets and it's amazing how that happens but it happens.
when you actually see the devastation, you would understand this is real serious business here.
when we say burn ban, that's exactly what it means, burn ban.
and I would like to thank the park folks, I got a call from charles burg yesterday who told me the parks that are open because it was labor day, but unfortunately all the parks couldn't be open yesterday.
so that, again, is something that we are all connected together in this and so since we are, we need to do things together with that type of relationship.
so I would like to applaud you and hopefully we can get the kind of resources or have the type of situation where we can
>> [indiscernible] ourselves in the future because most of these things has been contributed to the line arcing.
and I think you explained that very thoroughly.
and do we know exactly the cause of all the fires that's supposed to have been taken place, bastrop county, was that from line arcing?
I know the one in Travis County has basically been attributed to that, but what about bastrop county and the other counties impacted in such fires.
>> no, sir, I cannot talk about the bastrop fires.
the forestry, Texas forestry service has been working fires in the panhandle and they are reallocating sources to assist with these more rural areas.
their staff is meeting with our staff.
they had a meeting that began at 8:00 a.m.
this morning and they are looking at maps and other things.
some of our staff from our office may have insight on what's going on in bastrop.
I can tell you when the fires began to happen, we did contact the other county fire marshals and city fire investigators to make sure we didn't have anything outside of accidental fires or any kind of patterns.
so we have been in direct contact with the other counties and cities in reference to causation of the fires they are having at the same time, but unfortunately I cannot comment on the two large fires in bastrop and what the cause of those fires were.
>> well, thank god, thank god that we didn't have loss of life.
and, of course, property and things like that can be replaced, but to replace a human being is something I don't think we can do.
so I want to thank you all for what you've done to make sure that the evacuation was done properly and we didn't have loss of life.
because that's the bottom line, loss of life.
and I know there's other things important but loss of life is too.
>> Commissioner Huber.
>> I also wanted to thank all of those outside Travis County that came and help.
I was in touch with the judge from burnet county and they sent resources to the spicewood fire.
I wanted to ask, judge, I've had a number of people asking where they can send donations.
I just had a text from judge kleger asking where donations can be sent.
is it possible to put on the county website a list of where donations can be sent to assist the fire victims?
>> make it happen, mr. Baldwin.
>> we can do that.
we will need to work very closely with our red cross folks because donations can be the second disaster if you don't watch it because a lot of times people take an opportunity to get rid of some undesirable things that they don't want to donate --
>>
>> [indiscernible].
>> that is probably what we will do.
but we will make something happen, yes, sir.
>> and in relation to the red cross, can we work closely with them to be sure that the donations that are sent are sent to be used in Travis County?
because I know after the oak hill fire, there was some concern that -- that not all the donations sent to the red cross were actually expended in Travis County.
>> donations to the red cross are meant for the central Texas chapter which covers more than Travis County.
not only do we have fires in Travis County, but bastrop has fires.
Williamson county has fires.
you have structure fires all over where people get -- are not able to return and they've put them up in motels.
so I can't say that they would strictly be used in Travis County, but they will be used within central Texas.
>> central Texas is fine, but also I think that we need to look for an additional contribution area that we could figure out how to manage that because in the oak hill fire, I don't fully understand the limitations of the red cross assistance, but I know they put them up in hotel or motel and give them some short-term assistance in groceries and things like that.
but I know that there were people that wanted to make contributions for rebuilding and things and long-term assistance to the fire victims. So perhaps that's something we can look further into as well.
>> Commissioner Huber -- Eckhardt.
>> just if you all could reiterate the telephone number for folks to call.
it's the 974 number for folks if they need information.
>> I'm drawing a blank.
974, and I believe it's 6199.
>> that sounds right.
>> let's make sure that gets up on the website.
right now we have a link to the red cross and I think we should put a link to the telephone number for people to get information.
and also folks who are interested in donating, that link is on there for the red cross for victims to get information and also to post messages on red cross saying that they are all right so that family members who are trying to reach them and find out what their status is.
but also the red cross is asking for cash donations so they will be maximally fundable whether they need to get -- whether it's water trucked in or clothes or hotel vouchers or whatever.
>> let's process the application for disaster declaration and we'll have it on the agenda next Tuesday for either approval or ratification.
whichever is appropriate.
thank you all very much.
>> a link to the capcog telephone number, that's key.
the 911 reverse for cell phones really important.
>> we have had that on our website before when it first came out, but it might be a good time to revisit and repost it.
dan, I was going to say you joined us.
>> judge, with your permission I would like to give a quick update on how the fire has affected our parks.
I signed up for citizens communication but I thought it was appropriate to jump up here.
>> please do.
>> I have a handout of the reimers ranch fire which is an extension of what is now called the spicewood fire that I'll hand out to you.
>> if you'll give them all to Commissioner Davis, he will pass them down.
>> the area outlined in red, I was throw ing this together a few minutes ago because they are still actively fighting fires out there.
actually it all started on Saturday.
we were having spot fires in reimers Saturday from the pedernales fire which is now called the spicewood fire.
on Sunday when the steiner fire ignited and once we started evacuating steiner ranch and Travis County sheriff's office and the forest service and evacuated quinn lynn park road they were both closed.
they evacuated the area around fitzhugh park.
yesterday we shut down mansfield dam boat ramp to launching which was the only public boat ramp open on the lake and we also closed bob wentz so we could have the air tankers come in and resupply.
then yesterday afternoon, around noon, the fire that Commissioner Eckhardt referred to at burleson road and coalton, we shut down and evacuated moya park for about an hour but it reopened after the fire was contained.
yesterday afternoon around 4:00 was when the fire jumped the pedernales river and got into the pogue canyon area and burned some acres in steiner.
I would like to thank north hays county, they were the department that came out and knocked out that fire.
I would call it under control.
it's not actively spreading.
we've had 500 to 600 acres affected.
none of the new construction has been affected out there.
we have -- we haven't lost any of the phase 1 development.
structures or equipment.
so we've been very fortunate and lucky and I would like to thank north hays county and hays county sheriff's department.
they did a lot of traffic control on hamilton pool road.
>> thank you very much.
we appreciate the update.
>> excuse me, judge, if you don't mind, I also wanted to mention our road and bridge crews have been out for two days.
they were helping cut fire breaks in steiner ranch, removing debris and beating back the fire that came up to the perimeter of our west side service center.
I want to thank them for getting engaged and staying engaged as long as they did.
>> thank you.
>> I left out northeast metro.
Sunday afternoon there was a fire that started on hottie lane and we watched it all day but it got close enough to the boulder ridge subdivision in northeast metro, there's a soccer tournament going on, we had to evacuate the park but they were able to finish up yesterday.
>> I asked yesterday to -- and I know it's going to be a while before we get an assessment.
I was trying to get as much of a physical assessment as possible to see exactly what was going on from the entire county.
unfortunately I was not able to make it to every part of the county that I really wanted to go to the spicewood fire see exactly the impact of what was going on here and the devastation of what's going on, the real lifetime event of what we're talking about here.
but I did ask the question, after this is all said and done, and I know we still have hot spots and smouldering conditions that need to be taken care of so this doesn't happen again, when will we actually have something in writing, per se, probably, and I don't know, I guess you will have to answer that after it's all over, but have something in writing we can look at and review to see exactly the -- the depth of what we're talking about here.
>> currently we're updating the g.i.s.
maps with the extensions of the fires as they occur.
I received a phone call as I was sitting here in reference to those updates.
one of the things that might be beneficial to y'all is for us to send you a digital copy of those files.
they are large files obviously and next Tuesday we could bring in some maps that would assist with that.
and, of course, emergency management is on top of documenting any and all structures in reference to county assets.
>> what we will do, Commissioner, is in this declaration process there is a form to fill out called a disaster summary outline.
>> okay.
>> it notes businesses, recreational debris removal, it lists all categories.
the initial one is pretty much a guess because we're still actively involved.
but as we refine this through the next week or so, it will start breaking those down into a form or a category where you can get a good snapshot and then the maps will actually give you details and locations.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> we'll have it back on next week for further discussion.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thank you very much.
by taking no action we leave in place the burn ban outstanding already.
the current ban is outstanding through September 21st, 2011.
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