The chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management says a series of wildfires in the Texas Panhandle shows the need for the state to have a firefighting aircraft division.
FILE - This image taken from Greenville Fire-Rescue’s Facebook page on Feb. 28, 2024, shows fires in the Texas Panhandle. On Tuesday, April 2, 2024, Texas’ top emergency manager told a panel of lawmakers that the state should establish its own firefighting aircraft division after a series of wildfires, including the largest in state history, scorched the Panhandle region this year. FILE - Firefighters work through rubble of burned homes from the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Feb.
Pampa, a town of about 16,000 in Gray County about an hour northeast of Amarillo, is closer to Oklahoma than the Texas Capitol. Lawmakers decided to hold the hearings there to make it easier for victims of the fire to attend. For days, ranchers and residents could only look to the sky and wonder where firefighting aircraft were as they watched the historic Smokehouse Creek fire rip across their land.ignited by power lines, killed at least two people and left a charred landscape as it burned nearly 1,700 square miles and spilled into neighboring Oklahoma.
“Did the federal government jump through hoops to catch up? Yes. But there was a delay,” said Kidd, who has led TDEM for more than 13 years. He said the state would still need to utilize a mixture of private contracts and other options in the meantime.
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