CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The National Weather Service in Corpus Christi said Friday will be another day for high fire danger.
A Red Flag Warning is in effect from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday. Very dry conditions and strong northerly winds behind a cold front will result in critical fire weather conditions today across much of South Texas.
Area fire departments have been kept on their toes the past couple of days as several brush fires have recently broke out around the Coastal Bend.
Along with those area fire departments, members of the Texas A&M Forest Service have assisted in tackling a number of those fires.
It was some two years ago that the Forest Service put in a task force at Chase Field in Beeville, Texas. John Lazaro is one of the six task force crewmembers who work out of the Beeville location. He does everything from driving heavy trucks and tractors to getting right in the middle of a fire fight.
"We are not just wildland firefighters. We do whatever the State needs," Lazaro said. "We all have a variety of different skills. We can drive heavy equipment and sometimes they say just transfer this from one location to the other. As well as we have some guys who are aviation qualified. We have a lot of guys bring a variety of skill sets."
This week Lazaro and other firefighters have been on alert as the fire danger across the state remains high.
"Right now I saw you looking at the BLM Wyoming truck," Lazaro said. "He's an out-of-state resource. We have some Michigan resources here as well. And they're being placed across the state and to my knowledge, to Michigan, there are two Michigan dozers out here. I think two more are on their way, if not in the state already, but we've got resources coming from all over the country. It's not just us."
The Forest Service did send manpower and equipment over to Sinton and Odem on Tuesday to fight the huge grass fires there. Bee County Commissioner Sammy Farias is thankful that the Forest Service is here and can provide so much valuable assistance to area fire departments.
"Their assistance here, I mean you can't even put a price on it," Farias said. "And they are professional. They know what they're doing. They assist all of our volunteer fire departments, so they are a super asset to this county."
Lazaro said the Forest Service stands ready to help any department and is a simple phone call away.
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