Ran across this on another site and thought I would share.



Source: http://wildfiretoday.com/2011/09/06/bastrop-fire-in-texas-burns-600-homes/

From what I've read so far it looks like the entirety of Bastrop State Park has burned. The extent of the burn isn't well known though (brush vs treetop). I'm sure there will be a good mix of both with some areas of total devastation.

I used to own some land between Lake Bastrop and Hwy 21...and can tell you that most of that land in red on the west side North of 71 is full mature pine forest with full (uncleared) brush underneath. Most of the land in that area is divided into 5-10 acre homesites, and the only cleared land are driveways and the area immediately around the homes. I doubt they'll be able to stop it until it hits the lake at that spot.

IMO though, it looks like the biggest danger yet lurking is the fire spreading further east into the Buscher State Park area.


Having seen Yellowstone on fire, a couple years after it burned, and most recently last year...I gotta say that this is going to be a long recovery for the Bastrop area. It will never be the same.

The forests themselves will be fine... they have a natural burn cycle that occur every so many years... it will take a while but they will grow back

Am I selfish for occasionally thinking that I am losing my favorite part of the drive to college station

A sad result of all this is that the most beautiful stretch of road in Texas - that bit of 21 just as you go through the edge of the park, with the pine trees curving over the highway and overlapping above it like a canopy - is covered there. In fact, that's probably one of the reasons the fire was able to spread across 21. Probably would have happened anyway, but it certainly didn't help.

That stretch of road was one of the high-points of my otherwise excruciating 4-hour drive between S.A. and B/CS, which I did about a billion times in the early 90s.

[This message has been edited by aalan94 (edited 9/6/2011 11:30p).]

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That stretch of road was one of the high-points of my otherwise excruciating 4-hour drive between S.A. and B/CS, which I did about a billion times in the early 90s.

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+1. My favorite part of the drive to that part of Texas. My inlaws live in Lockhart, and we'd drive that way all of the time. Things are going to look very different at Thanksgiving...

What's the percent chance that the fire spreads into the city proper of Bastrop?

That's the worst map I've seen. It means the state park is gone and its not far from downtown. If the wind goes west....not good. Plus it means the rest of Tahitian village burns.

+1 on best stretch of road in texas. Been an absolute fav or mine since i was a freshman driving back and forth from SA to BCS

Here's another map I've found, current as of my posting: http://bit.ly/oXNWVC.

"The forests themselves will be fine... they have a natural burn cycle that occur every so many years... it will take a while but they will grow back"

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Correct. They will grow back, but it will take a very long time. I visited Yellowstone a number of years after the fires there. There had been all sorts of publicity about how the forests were already growing back. What a bunch of b.s. All you could see in the fire areas were black charred remains.

The Yellowstone recovery after the fire was different in that the growing season there is much shorter than the growing season in Bastrop, Texas. The area around Bastrop will recover much quicker because plants have more time to grow during the year. It certainly won't look good this year, with fall and winter coming soon, but next spring it will begin to recover, and will green up faster than most think it will. The trees will take longer than the brush, but they too will recover.

I'm actually heading that way tomorrow (San Antonio to CS).

Do you Ags know if 21 is still closed?

Been trying to find info on the web but no luck thus far

Lots of wildlife lost...Bastrop State Park was the only home of the rare Houston toad. Such a beautiful area and a source of income for Bastrop. Such heartache for those who live there. And now, a loss of two lives...

There are some photos at the Statesman website showing some of the pines along 21 east of Bastrop. It's only ash and pine trunks now.

[This message has been edited by AgCat93 (edited 9/7/2011 12:36a).]

Eagle, just plan on them being closed. TXDOT isn't showing the closures on their website for some reason, but 21 is probably going to be closed until the fire is contained. When I drove from CS to San Marcos on Monday, 21 was closed all the way from 290.

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Do you Ags know if 21 is still closed?

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http://www.dot.state.tx.us/travel/road_conditions.htm
Select "Closed" condition and Submit.

I wish all these local news websites would actually publish the source of their road closure information rather than leaving out-of-date stuff up.

Anyway, yea, looks like ALL routes from SA to CS are closed through Bastrop as of now (I have to make that trip coming up as well). Plan on checking that website tomorrow pre-trip for updates or just avoid the area altogether.

"The Yellowstone recovery after the fire was different in that the growing season there is much shorter than the growing season in Bastrop, Texas. The area around Bastrop will recover much quicker because plants have more time to grow during the year. It certainly won't look good this year, with fall and winter coming soon, but next spring it will begin to recover, and will green up faster than most think it will"
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I knew someone was going to say this. I wish that you were right, but I don't think so. Sure, you will see some scrub brush etc growing in a few years (provided we have rain), but the trees.....Nope. It's going to take a long time.

And all that recovery depends on rain - something we don't have in the forecast any time soon.

Bastrop State Park will recover much faster than Yellowstone. Up north, you get very little rot because of the cooler climate. Down here those dead standing trees will rot in the warmer/moister climate and fall within a few years. In Yellowstone, many dead trees are still standing to this day.

I witnessed a small fire in Bastrop a few years back due to my own stupidity, and can attest to the rate at which the area can recover. Within a year you will have millions of small pine trees all over the place. They'll grow a couple feet a year, easy.

What won't grow back though is all the lost tourism...at least not anytime soon.