Current Events
West Texas Fires
2011
The end of April and first part of May 2011 turned into one
of the worst ever due to fires in West Texas. If you check
the photo gallery page for Longfellow you’ll see some of
the damage in the area including site hardware damage. The
following information appeared on the Dillo reflector:
"Intertie
(Texas), like Dillo, suffered severe site damage in the
Rock-House fire (several hundred thousand acres) and a
second fire near Marathon. (many thousand more)
At our McElroy site one of the telephone pole antenna
mounts burned down, taking 3 commercial stations and our
weather sensors; high winds just prior to the fire broke
our DB-413 talk-back radio antenna. Very fortunately, the
shack made it with all equipment intact.
The ranch manager and his family survived a 60-foot high
wall of fire that incredibly spared their home.
At Longfellow site all contents of the metal shelter were
incinerated along with the AC power feed. Miraculously, a
newly constructed shelter survived along with solar panels,
batteries and solar controller.
We will be placing more pix on our web site later.
Meanwhile, here are 2 snaps. The red spots on the weather
station are from orate fire retardant air
drops."
