From the Ashes
by Rani Birchfield
F
rying Pan Ranch. Moonglow.
Casper Mountain. Wildcat.
Matador West. White Hat.
Pinnacle. Wilderness Ridge. Bear Creek.
Tanglewood. Bastrop County Complex.
Possum
Kingdom
Complex.
Rockhouse. While these sound like
chapter titles in a book or destinations
for a bucket list, they’re only a few
names of fires in 2011. A record-break-
ing fire season that seemed never to end,
in 2011 Fire took its due in force, pay-
ment for over-abundant rainfall the pre-
vious year. Over 31,000 fires raged
throughout Texas, burning over
4,000,000 acres and almost 3000
homes.
There have been multiple days of
“Red Flag Warnings” and “Fire Weather
Watches” already in 2018. What does
this mean? In a January 31, 2018, article
on agfax.com it states:
10
“The term ‘Fire Season’ is a period of
time when, due to climate and weather
patterns, wildland fires are likely to occur,
spread, and affect resource values sufficient
to warrant organized fire management
activities,” Tom Spencer, director of the
Texas Forest Service’s predictive services
department, said in an interview for Texas
Monthly Informer in 2011. Texas usually
has two distinct seasons where there’s wild-
fire danger: a winter/spring season when
the “fuel” (trees and grass) has been dried
out by the cold, and a late summer/early
fall season when the hot and dry weather
takes its toll.
However, above-average tempera-
tures and below-average rainfall extend
these time frames sometimes making it
one long season ripe for the burning.
At the age of six, Fort-Davis-born
Ginger Fisher McGough’s parents
moved their family into the Fisher
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2018
house. The late-1800s house belonged
to her grandparents – hence the name –
and McGough’s parents joined the
grandparents in order to help them. The
historic adobe and stone building was
cobbled together and expanded through
the years with wood floors, wood shin-
gles and whatever electrical wiring was
in vogue at the time. It started out small,
but when they needed more space, they
built it. They’d add a porch, cover the
porch, enclose the porch, make another
porch, cover the porch, enclose the
porch and so on.
McGough left her childhood home as
children do, but returned later with her
own kids after splitting with her hus-
band. McGough was very close with her
family and credits her parents, saying,
“They’re the reason my children are as
good as they are.” She lived in a trailer
on the property 200 yards away from
the main house until her parents passed
away. Her mother passed first, and when
her father passed in 2005, she moved
into the family abode. “I was so excited
to move in to Mother and Daddy’s
house,” she said. “It was full of antiques
and collectibles, part of it was an old
barber shop. My father was the only bar-
ber in Fort Davis for a time.”
A 2012 Texas A&M Forest Service
report entitled “2011 Texas Wildfires:
Common Denominators of Home
Destruction” says this:
Since the mid-1990s, Texas has
experienced larger and more complex wild-
fires and extended wildfire seasons, which
have challenged the ability of state and
local resources to protect citizens and their
property.
At the root of this evolving situation is a
change in the climate cycle that increases
the occurrence of drought.
In 2011, Texas experienced the worst
one-year drought in recorded state history,
which dates back to 1895. The result
was devastating wildfires and massive
destruction.
The period from October 2010 to
September 2011 was the driest period in
Texas history according to Texas State
Climatologist John Nielsen-Grammon.
Back up to the summer of 2010, when
four tropical systems dumped copious
amounts of rain over the state, causing a
huge growth in grass and other vegeta-
tion. Once this vegetation was “cured”
by the first freeze and an exceptionally
dry period, the state was full of kindling.
Back up a bit further in time to 2009,
when National Weather Service meteo-
rologists Greg Murdoch and Todd
Lindley identified a phenomenon
known as a Southern Plains Wildfire
Outbreak pattern.
In general, the Southern Plains out-
break pattern is associated with a strong
upper level low pressure center. The upper
level low approaches Texas from the west,
dragging a cold frontal boundary with it as
it crosses near or north of the Texas High
Plains. The high-impact weather produced
by the outbreaks can be found in a wedge