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Firefighters Get Much Needed Break This Weekend

After weeks of what seems like non-stop grassfires, crews got a bit of a break this weekend.
Nick Lawton
NewsWest 9

MIDLAND - A quick scan of the skies on Sunday in the Tall City, and you can see the difference. Cloudy skies and cooler temperatures. But those conditions along with others are what local firefighters are thanking for this brief release.

"The weather is a third of the equation," Midland Fire Captain, Robert Wade, said. "The weather, and then you have the fuel. Topography, which is the lay of the land. So the only two things that change around here are the weather and the fuel."

Midland firefighters check the Haines and Fosberg Indexes, which measure wind speed and moisture in the air, every morning to determine how much danger there will be for a fire.

Depending on how high they are, that's how much staff and trucks they'll bring in that day.

The indexes told NewsWest 9 on Sunday that since last week, the temperature's dropped 20 degrees, the wind's died down ten miles per hour and the humidity has gone up 51%.

"It slows down the spread of the fire from one fuel source to the next, or one bush to the next," Wade said. "Which allows us to get resources in place to handle it."

Any grassfires that have popped up this weekend, firefighters have been quick to snuff out.

They predict that dry conditions will return again soon but they also took the time this weekend to rest and recover for the fires to come.

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