Wildfires, including one that is already ranking as one of the largest in Texas history, are creating smoky conditions that are getting carried across Texas. A cold front producing gusty north winds is responsible for transporting the smoke to San Antonio.
WFFD has 156 employees not all of whom are fire fighters.This response to wildfire activity has also enlisted the need for local firefighters to aid in the disaster.
According to City of Wichita Falls Public Information Officer Chris Horgen, two members of the Wichita Falls Fire Department are currently fighting fires in the Panhandle.
Horgen said these members are working with the Texas A&M Forest Service Task Force.
Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires in Texas, a danger made real this week as the Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest in state history, burns out of control across the Panhandle region.
And that growing fire risk is beginning to affect the insurance market in Texas, raising premiums for homeowners and causing some insurers to withdraw from parts of the state.
On Monday, as the Smokehouse Creek fire began to spread, it was 82 degrees Fahrenheit in Amarillo. The city’s average daytime high temperature in February is 54 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
As of Thursday, a New York Times tracker based on federal data shows more than one million acres burning, making the fire one of the most destructive in U.S. history.
Texas is currently the state with the second highest number of properties that are vulnerable to wildfires, behind Florida, according to analysis by the nonprofit research group First Street Foundation.
In most of Texas, wildfires happen in the summer. But across the Southern Plains, including the Texas Panhandle, fire risk is highest around March when temperatures warm, strong winds blow over the flat landscape and dry grass left from the previous growing season can easily catch fire.
Only about 1 percent of wildfires in Texas happen in the Panhandle, but the region accounts for half of the state’s acres burned, said Sean Dugan, a spokesman for the Texas A&M Forest Service. “They’re not very numerous. But when they do happen, they get really big,” he said.
Normally, if there is no drought, in April the landscape starts to become green and the Panhandle’s fire risk goes down. But this year, there are “enhanced chances” of a dry spring and summer and a hot summer, Dr. Nielsen-Gammon said. As a result, he expects the fire risk to remain high in the Panhandle and it may be higher during the summer in the rest of the state as well.
As the climate changes, the very concept of a fire season is becoming blurry.
“There were clear fire seasons for Texas in the past, but fires have become a year-round threat,” said Yongqiang Liu, a meteorologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Southern Research Station, in an email.
Texans are noticing the uptick in extreme weather events, said Jeremy Mazur, a senior policy adviser at Texas 2036, a nonpartisan research organization that helps fund an extreme weather report written by the state climatologist.
A top concern of residents is the rising cost of homeowners insurance, according to a recent survey conducted by Texas 2036. About 88 percent of 1,000 likely voters polled expressed some level of concern about extreme weather events increasing what they pay for property insurance.
“The real impact that we’re starting to see from this growing wildfire risk is in the form of growing property insurance premiums,” Mr. Mazur said.
Texas homeowners saw their insurance rates increase 53.6 percent between 2019 and 2023, according to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. That was the highest rate of any state save for Arizona.
For just one double hung window about $3000. 
A subject was taken into custody on Bell Road following a possible SWAT standoff Monday afternoon.
A large response was called in around 12:40 p.m. Monday, March 11, 2024, to the 2200 block of Bell Road South for a barricaded subject.
According to our reporter on the scene, local officials and a SWAT team were involved in a standoff when a suspect reportedly barricaded himself in a nearby building’s attic.
Deputies with the Wichita County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa Park Police Department and Iowa Park Fire Department reportedly gassed the suspect out of the building, according to our reporter.
After deploying the gas, law enforcement was able to detain the subject and take them into custody.
An unusual-colored grasshopper surprised a Wichita Falls resident last week when she was in her front yard. Instead of its typical grass-green hue, the bug was a dusty pink, sticking out like a sore thumb against the bushes in her yard.
A docent at the nature center identified the insect as a specimen of Chortophaga viridifasciata, otherwise known as a green-striped grasshopper. This common species is found throughout the Great Plains.
Kevin Seman, Lead Docent of Riverbend Nature Center, reported that the grasshopper’s coloring comes from a mutation called erythrism, which is caused by an excess of red pigment in an animal’s coloring.
https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/art ... 085842.php (different hopper at a wildlife refuge)
"While rare, this pink coloration is actually due to a genetic mutation called erythrism and is caused by the overproduction of red pigments and the underproduction of dark pigments," wildlife officials explained in a Sunday Facebook post. "Because these bright pink 'hoppers are not well-camouflaged, they're much more likely to be eaten by predators. Good luck, little one!"
As noted by wildlife officials, it's not easy being pink. Since they're more visible against plants, pink grasshoppers rarely survive to adulthood, according to National Geographic. The pink genetic mutation was first discovered in the katydid species in 1887, and typically occurs in the common meadow grasshopper. Green-striped grasshoppers are typically tan, brown or green in color and have a green or brown stripe close to the border of their front wings, which are yellowish and smokey near the tips, according to Animal Diversity Web.
That's what you do when your pants are on fire
Large plumes of smoke could be seen in a field near Fisher Road on Wednesday.
Fire crews were called to the scene at 12:40 p.m. at Midwestern Parkway East and Fisher Road.
The fire is located on the backside of the Wichita Clutch building in the business district.
