AUSTIN -- Back to business, Texas lawmakers started 2012 with a sobering review of the wildfires of 2011, and their stunning cost in property and resources.
"You could build a six-foot wooden fence seven times from New York to Los Angeles. That's how much timber was lost," Texas Forest Service director Tom Boggus told the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security on Tuesday. "The paper would supply Texas schoolchildren for five years in their textbooks."
The hearing was scheduled in part to find out from those involved what Texas could have done better.
"We need to act quicker," Waller County fire chief Freddy Williams told KVUE.
One of the first topics to come up was money. With state funds allocated by the Texas Forest Service to volunteer firefighters cut from $23 million to just $7 million in the last session, many departments are hanging by a thread.
"When they're hurting, we're hurting as a state and as a whole," said State Senator Robert Nichols of Jacksonville.
There may also be another problem.
More and more people have moved from the cities to newly-constructed "semi-urban" communities outside the city limits. There's growing concern that with no way for counties to regulate neighborhood design, building materials, and brush removal policies, developers may be designing a recipe for disaster.
"What we're doing is we're asking people to live in an area that hasn't been necessarily prepared for human residence yet," Bastrop County emergency management coordinator Mike Fisher told KVUE.
Many of the newer developments are also gated communities with just one way in and out. While it's a good design for keeping out criminals and unwanted guests, in the case of a fire, it could be a potential problem when firefighters are trying to get in and people are trying to get out.
There are plenty of lessons to learn from the wildfires of 2011, and the good news is the lessons are generating serious discussion in the State Capitol.
The Texas Forest Service has launched a new website in response to the fires, allowing businesses and residents to see the wildfire risk they may be subject to.
"What I say everywhere I go is that if we've figured out a way to save lives, let's make a practice of that," said Fisher. "Let's do that over and over."
