By Cristin Ross

Don’t let recent rainfall or the green foliage fool you — Henderson County is in the throes of a drought.

“While some areas have seen enough rain to begin greening up the grasses again, there is a good portion of the state that hasn’t seen a drop,” Texas Forest Service (TFS) wildfire risk assessment coordinator Tom Spencer said in a press release published Monday on the TFS Web site, tfsweb.tamu.edu. “We have several areas throughout the state that we view as still critically dry, and it will take much more rain to the alleviate the problem.”

The Texas Water Development Board’s most recent report — issued June 3 on the board’s Web site www.twd-b.state.tx.us — said the East Texas region, as well as the North Central, Trans Pecos, Edwards Plateau, South Central, and Southern regions, are experiencing “Severe Drought” conditions, according to the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). The High Plains, Low Rolling Plains, Upper Coast, and Lower Valley regions are under “Moderate Drought” conditions.

And that’s got local fire and volunteer fire departments working overtime.

“It’s just that time of year,” Shady Oaks Fire Chief Betty Wilson said with a philosophical shrug.

That time of year, indeed. Henderson County firefighters reported at least three major grassfires burning nearly simultaneously — in three different parts of the county — Wednesday.

“We were spread pretty thin,” said Baxter Fire Chief James Brown. “Some of us were called away from one fire to go help with another fire.”

Wednesday’s trio of fires were located on CR 4501 near Athens, on CR 41514 east of Loop 7 in Athens and at the Boy Scout Ranch, near Shady Oaks. Damages included the complete loss of two trailer houses and a riding lawnmower, some damage to the underpinnings of a third trailer house and several vehicles, and the destruction of numerous combined acres of pasture land.

“There was nothing we could do, nothing,” said Rose Mary Abbott, whose home was one of the trailer homes destroyed by fire.

At least three other fires took place Wednesday morning in the Murchison, Brownsboro, Chandler areas and the LaRue area as well, Brown said.

Since Feb. 27, TFS fire crews have responded to more than 150 fires — averaging about 17 fires a day — in East Texas, and the vast majority of these resulted from debris burning, according to Robert Grisham, regional forester with the state forestry agency.

“East Texas has benefited from some rains previously, but dead grasses dried quickly in the windy weather that immediately followed the rain events,” said Grisham in a press release published recently on the TFS Website. “Since the last rain, we’ve had a long enough period of dry weather that timber fuels have dried out as well.”

While Henderson County currently has no burn ban in place, the Texas Forest Service urgently requests public cooperation and postponement of all outdoor burning while these dangerous weather conditions prevail.

“When East Texas counties dropped their burning bans, people started burning trash and brush,” Grisham said. “The high number of recent wildfires attests to the fact that a lot of folks haven’t been careful enough with their outdoor burning or haven’t postponed their burning outdoors during dangerous weather conditions.”

Dry summer weather usually starts taking its toll on the East Texas countryside this time of year — drying up brush and pastureland and making outdoor burning hazardous — but officials said this year’s conditions have been worsened by the minimal winter rains the area received during the colder months.

According to TWDB archives, the East district was only experiencing mild drought conditions this time last year. In 2004, June conditions were reported near normal.

State climatologist Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, with Texas A&M University’s College of Geosciences, told the online Country World News in November 2005, about two-thirds of the state was in drought, with the worst region being Northeast Texas, at that time.