An update on the largest wildfire in Texas history

Dr. Reed Timmer, Extreme Meteorologist, recaps some of the key points of the wildfire and discusses an outlook on what to potentially expect next.

Transcript

00:00 An elevated wildfire threat continues today across the southern high plains as

00:04 winds are continuing to be relatively gusty and relative humidities are down

00:08 around 10 to 15 percent and there's also some very dry fuels that remain out

00:13 there and the wildfire threats going to continue through today and then a cold

00:17 frontal passage is going to slide through and that will eventually

00:19 mitigate the wildfire threat through the rest of the week but so far today

00:24 firefighters are starting to do back burning to the south of some of these

00:27 burn scars to try to prevent that southward spread that happens so rapidly

00:31 with a cold front passage some of that back burning is happening near Catesby

00:35 Oklahoma on the Catesby fire burn scar and around the southern periphery of the

00:39 old Smokehouse Creek fire burn scar as well that one burned to over 1 million

00:44 acres becoming the largest wildfire in Texas state history and that one even

00:49 surpassed in some of those big mega fires from Colorado like the troublesome

00:53 East troublesome fire and the Cameron Peak fire from a couple of years ago

00:56 many of those mountain fires out in California as well are much smaller than

01:00 the million acres burnt by this very fast-moving wildfire in the Texas

01:04 Panhandle a grass fire driven by 40 to 60 mile-per-hour winds here in central

01:09 Oklahoma the front has pushed off to the east and we have dry conditions back

01:12 behind it so the wildfire threat grass fires the potential for those is going

01:17 to remain elevated through the afternoon as well so certainly from a fire

01:22 weather standpoint this is likely the last day at least with this round with

01:26 this trough where it's going to remain elevated in the southern high plains

01:29 but I do think that when the next system comes through those windy conditions are

01:33 going to bring a resumed threat of fires to the area