Tagged: Central Texas wildfires

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has given Texas $31.2 million to help cover the costs of the devastating wildfires that spread across the state in 2011. The money will go to help the recovery in Bastrop and at least nine other wildfires during that year.

FEMA says the funding covers about 75 percent of the overall costs including materials, equipment, meals, air support and logging.

The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center made another delivery this week of 4,000 drought-resistant loblolly pine saplings to Bastrop County. Bastrop’s pine forests were ravaged by a wildfire in 2011 that destroyed 32,000 acres.  This was the third delivery for the Wildflower Center, bringing to about 15,000 the number of saplings they've contributed for reforestation. 

University of Texas at Austin students who are part of the Campus Environmental Center are helping to reforest the burnt lands of Bastrop by sending the city more than 40,000 loblolly pine tree seedlings.

Vlad Codrea, a graduate research assistant at UT, is overseeing the project at the tree nursery at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Thursday, the Campus Environmental Center will extract the tree seedlings from their containers and package them to be sent to Bastrop.

Codrea said the project actually began in March 2011, before the Bastrop fires, when he first asked for funding for a tree nursery from UT's Green Fee Committee. The Committee reviews environmental projects pitched by UT students and awards grant money so the students can complete these projects. Codrea was awarded a $54,198  grant over four years.

A popular campground in Bastrop that was devastated by the Labor Day wildfires in 2011 will be reforested with the help of Boy Scouts. Almost half of the 5,000-acre Griffith League Scout Ranch was destroyed by flames.

The Scouts will team up with the Texas A&M Forest Service to plant about 300,000 loblolly pine seedlings over the next two years.

The American Red Cross has released a free mobile app to help people stay aware of wildfire danger.

The app gives users instant access to a so-called “blaze tracker” that issues alerts when conditions are favorable for wildfires and when a wildfire has begun within 100 miles of any location designated by the user. Users can also monitor multiple locations to keep up-to-date with what might be happening in a region susceptible to wildfires where friends or family live.

"A lot of information about wildfires is really hard to get and to take in. Wildfires are big, covering hundreds of acres, and also really fast-moving... [This app] actually even allows you to see the path of a fire, where its perimeter is, and what's happening. And that really makes the information about these big fires a little easier to digest," Sara Kennedy, Director of Communications for American Red Cross Central Texas Region, says.

People who lost their homes in the Bastrop wildfires last year have until the end of business today to apply for federal housing aid.

As KUT News previously reported, The Texas General Land Office says far fewer people than anticipated have applied for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development aid.

The Texas General Land Office is distributing about $20 million that could help as many as 200 fire victims.  Each applicant could get as much as $125,000 to put towards rebuilding their homes.

Another $5 million is going directly to Bastrop County for erosion control and other fire mitigation projects.

But at last check, less than 90 people had applied—although 2,100 homes were destroyed in the fire.