Green grass grows around plants and trees scorched by Smokehouse Creek wildfire on April 3 near Canadian. “The lands recover faster than the people,” said Janet Guthrie, a Canadian resident who raises cattle in Hemphill County.— a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.
As summer nears, the mentality among residents is largely one of self-mitigation — keeping the grass mowed, running the sprinklers, watching for overgrown weeds. “It is on the state to enforce the law,” King said. “What we can’t fix, that’s where the bills will be drafted from.”that climate change is driving wildfires to be more intense and longer wildfire seasons in the Panhandle. Five of the largest wildfires in Texas history collectively burned nearly 2.6 million acres since 2006,to data from Texas A&M Forest Service. This includes this year’s Smokehouse Creek fire, which grew into the largest in state history.
“We’ve got to do what we can to keep the vegetation at a minimum around all our key sites,” Satterwhite said. John Julian with Canadian Water Well was busy for weeks after the fires because of damanged water wells at homes and ranches. His company has seen wells that were a total loss, which costs about $30,000 to redo. But, they’ve seen more wells that can be repaired, which can be as little as $3,000 and as much as $9,000, depending on the needs.