Kendall County fire officials dispatched personnel and equipment this weekend to help firefighters battle the Crabapple Wildfire that has consumed nearly 10,000 acres of land near Fredericksburg.
Brady Constantine, Kendall County fire marshal, spent 60 straight hours on the perimeter of another blaze, the Bootes Fire, 12 miles northeast of Comfort. He said conditions remain ripe for potential wildfires.
“The wind and humidity have been critical, and are not to the advantage of anybody in the state,” he said Tuesday, from his post outside the Bootes Fire.
Kendall County currently is under a burn ban, and the fire marshal said adherence to that ban is crucial.
“There should be no outdoor burning. At all. There’s nothing that needs to be burned right now, that can’t
A Texas Forest Service C-130 Hercules drops fire retardant to slow down or stop the fire’s movement to the north near the origin of the fire in the 8700 block of Crabapple Road. The “Crabapple Fire” near Fredericksburg, Texas, has prompted a coordinated response from multiple fire departments and emergency services including Alamo Springs, Boerne, Kerrville and Killeen.
Star photo by Tom Olson wait a couple of days,” he said. “The winds are unpredictable. I would even discourage outdoor grilling at this point.”
The Sisterdale Volunteer Fire Department and Boerne Fire Department each dispatched a brush truck and team of two firefighters when the call came Saturday for aid in battling the Crabapple Fire, 8-10 miles north of Fredericksburg.
That blaze quickly intensified, jumping roadways and highways while escalating from an early 3,200-acre blaze to a reported 9,858 acres by 9 a.m. Tuesday.
For a size reference, the city of Boerne occupies about 7,660 acres.
City of Boerne officials said their fire team withdrew from Crabapple as state strike teams began to arrive. One Boerne fire official, Assistant Fire Chief Walter Ball, remains on scene, in charge of the medical strike team.
A reported seven residences and two vacant structures were consumed by that blaze.
Meanwhile, closer to home, the Bootes Fire flared up, meeting up with the earlier Headwaters Fire in consuming 120 acres.
Constantine said the number of fires — whether flare-ups like blazes along Interstate 10, or brush fires, like the one that started the Headwaters and Bootes Fires — have stretched the county’s resources and personnel to the limit.
The fire marshal said he received a call when the Crabapple Fire first started, asking what resources were available, as Kendall County directly abuts Gillespie County and seemed to be the logical choice for initial fire dispatch.
But Kendall had its own fire to deal with, the Bootes Fire in the 8300 block of North FM 1376, north of Sisterdale just south of Luckenbach.
“There’s 90 percent containment right now,” Constantine said Tuesday. “Winds are at about 30 mph and the U.S. Forest Service mapped it out (Monday) at about 120 acres.”
The smaller Bootes Fire met up with the larger Headwaters Fire to consume the cited acreage.
“There’s no active fire up here, we just don’t want anything to carry across any fire lines,” he said.
Battling the Bootes Fire were crews from Comal County, Blanco County, Bandera County and Bexar County. “And every fire department within Kendall County has been out here,” he said.
He has remained on site and in contact with the Texas Department of Emergency Management, which ordered several fire drops on the blaze.
“I was in contact with them, to run some of my decisions past them, to make sure I was doing the right thing,” he said. “These things can be fluid and change so quickly.”
While county crews are tending to large blazes away from their stations, Constantine pointed out that the county remains covered.
“That’s done strategically, so as not to jeopardize the rest of the county. Tactical decisions are made like this to fight this fire and maintain fire protection to our county residents,” he added.
He said there has been no attempt to ascertain the cause of the Bootes, Headwaters or Crabapple Fires. “Almost all effort has been on stopping and containing these fires.”
He said he will report back to county officials once the Bootes Fire has been knocked down.
“We just can’t stress enough, that there be no burning. Whatsoever,” he said. “The wildfire hazard is right on top of us. Any burning of any kind can be the spark that launches the next blaze like this.”
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