Travis County Judge Andy Brown and Mayor Kirk Watson held a joint news conference Monday to announce that each had signed disaster declarations related to wildfire risk. “On Friday I signed a disaster declaration,” Brown said. “It will allow Travis County to proactively access resources, streamline emergency coordination (and) reinforce wildfire prevention efforts.” According to […]
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City and county officials kick off Wildfire Awareness Month
As Austin/Travis County heads into another scorching hot wildfire season, city and county leaders are sharing updates on community-wide preparedness efforts and emphasizing how individual Austinites can do their part. Local officials held a press conference on Tuesday to kick off Wildfire Awareness Month. Austin currently ranks fifth on a list of major U.S. cities […]
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Austin has had 5 high-risk wildfire days this month alone. Why are there so many red flag warnings?
As Texas becomes hotter and drier, and urban sprawl grows, the state could see more days with an elevated risk for wildfires. So far this year, Austin has had five of these days, also known as red flag warning days, and all of them have been in March. Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said over […]
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As wildfire anxiety grows, Austin plans to designate half the city as at risk of fire damage
Austin plans to greatly expand the amount of land, and therefore homes, considered at risk of wildfire damage. City Council members are scheduled to discuss updating rules surrounding Austin’s WUI, or Wildland-Urban Interface, later this month. This is the area where wilderness and development meet, and where there is a higher risk that a fire […]
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Austin ranks fifth in nation for cities most at risk for wildfires
According to a CoreLogic Wildfire Risk Report conducted in 2024, Austin ranks fifth in the nation for cities most at risk for wildfires. The top four cities are all located in California. David Bock, senior wildfire mitigation specialist at the Austin Fire Department, gave a presentation to the Environmental Commission at its regular meeting on […]
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Proposals to address wildfire dangers face opposition
Two items on today’s City Council agenda related to wildfire prevention have raised alarms among at least two community groups – the Save Our Springs Alliance and Community Not Commodity. The agenda indicates that the first item would allocate nearly $200,000 for a study of wildland fire fuels by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. […]
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Austin ranks 5th in major cities vulnerable to wildfires
Those who were in Austin in 2011 remember the tragic wildfires that hit Bastrop, Steiner Ranch and Spicewood that summer. The fires collectively burned through thousands of acres of land and destroyed over a thousand homes. “You can still drive down 21 in Bastrop and see where the trees were,” Travis County Fire Marshal Gary […]
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City honors AFD’s work training firefighters for wildland-urban fires
Throughout her time on the dais, District 10 City Council Member Alison Alter has stressed the need for the city to understand and prepare to fight wildfires in the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, which is the area between unoccupied land and human-made structures. On Thursday, she sponsored a proclamation praising the Fire Department for making […]
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AFD narrows its wildfire preparedness focus on Eastern Crescent
Ahead of national Wildfire Community Preparedness Day on May 4, the Public Safety Commission this week heard an update on how Austin is faring with its own community readiness efforts. The good news is that Austin leads the state in its number of “Firewise” communities – a designation given by the National Fire Protection Association’s […]
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Council OKs contract for new AI wildfire tool
City Council on Thursday approved negotiation and execution of a contract for what Austin Energy describes as a powerful new tool to aid the utility in wildfire detection and response. The utility says it will use Pano AI technology to provide Austin Energy crews and emergency first responders with up-to-the-minute information to quickly respond to […]
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City continues to work on wildfire mitigation strategies
The public may not have noticed, but Austin-Travis County had 963 different brush and grass fire alarms in September, Assistant Fire Chief Andre de la Reza told members of the city’s Public Safety Commission on Monday. The department was able to handle those without requiring anyone to evacuate their homes, but the number demonstrates that […]
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Watson, Brown declare local state of emergency over wildfire threat
Mayor Kirk Watson and Travis County Judge Andy Brown on Tuesday declared a local state of emergency in response to the threat of wildfires. Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott said that wildfires in 191 Texas counties “pose an imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property,” thus leading to […]