“Maybe we hadn’t paid as much attention to it as we should have, but with the recent California disaster, it has really become a priority for a lot of people,” Young told KTAB/KRBC during a Tuesday ride-along.
The issues Young and Sowell have identified are three-fold. From those issues, they have developed suggestions to bring to Taylor County Judge Phil Crowley at the next Commissioners court meeting on January 28, 2025.
Lack of access to water in rural subdivisions
On Tuesday, KTAB/KRBC joined the fire chiefs on a tour of various county subdivisions to get a firsthand look at the issues they’ve identified. The first stop was a neighborhood northeast of Buffalo Gap, where Young pointed out an area that once had a fire hydrant but now only features a flush valve.
“This subdivision, when it was put in, engineered, platted and everything. They had fire hydrants here. As soon as that was handed over to our local water supply district, they came in and pulled the fire hydrants up and replaced them with flush valves, which are way less capable as far as water delivery than the fire hydrants are,” Young explained.
Sowell and Young shared that an average fire hydrant can deliver anywhere from 500 to 1,000 gallons per minute (GPM), whereas a flush valve usually provides far less, closer to 100 GPM. That drop in readily available water makes the task of fighting a house or wildfire much more difficult.
“We’ve lost 90% of our flow capacity right here by going from a fire hydrant to a flush valve… We would like to see these subdivisions, the new ones that are coming in, if there’s any way to do it, to require the developer to place these fire hydrants no more than 1,600 feet apart,” Young said.
It’s an issue that neighborhood resident Sherri Golden has tried to remedy in the past, to no avail. Golden shared that her insurance agency told her that her home insurance rates were increasing because the area did not have a fire hydrant. Despite making the necessary calls to request its installation, her efforts ultimately fell short.
“My insurance agent called me and said they decided not to do it because ‘If they do it for you, they have to do it for other neighborhoods.’ I don’t think that’s a good enough reason. To say well, if we do it for you, we have to do it for everyone else. I mean, honestly, why are we not doing it for everyone?” Golden remarked.
Narrow roads and single access points hinder navigability
“We’ve found that many subdivisions have only one way in and one way out. That’s part of the problem they found in California,” Young said.
Most subdivisions have only one entry and exit point, which Fire Chiefs Young and Sewell say makes congestion and bottlenecking inevitable during an emergency. Combined with narrow roadways, this creates a perfect storm of challenges: traffic jams caused by evacuating residents and incoming emergency vehicles, along with the added difficulty of maneuvering fire engines and other large response vehicles.
“If the roadway is wide enough, that’s not as big an issue. If it’s a pretty narrow road in and out and there is no place to turn the emergency equipment around or maneuver, it becomes a real problem quickly. You’ve seen examples of that with them having to push cars out of the road with dozers and all that stuff,” said Young.
Golden recalled the chaotic scene in 2022 when her neighborhood was on the pre-evacuation list during the Mesquite Heat Fire. She remarked on the single access point and how quickly it became clogged with her evacuating neighbors.
“Cars were lined up to get out; people were grabbing a suitcase. But I don’t know if that fire would come. If we could have got out, we might have had to flee our cars… If something happened and we couldn’t go that way. We would have to be like in the Sound of Music, crawling over the hills and climbing those mountains to get out of here,” Golden expressed. “An ounce of prevention is way better than a pound of cure. I feel like we really need to plan for that, and I think the residents really deserve it. [The neighborhood] has changed, and we’re not upgrading with the change, with how many people live out here.”
Sowell added that their suggestions, while aimed at wildfire prevention, would also benefit access and operation during other incidents, such as house fires and medical or law enforcement calls.
Drawing a line between properties and potential fire fuel
Looking outside the confines of the subdivisions themselves, the chiefs say wildfire survivability would be dramatically improved if the outer edges of the subdivisions did not have brush and growth sitting so close to the property line.
“We are going to try to see if we can suggest having a dedicated perimeter around these subdivisions to fight an incoming wildfire and have a decent chance of stopping it before it gets into the houses,” said Young.
Cedar and Juniper trees are plentiful in the area, and Young warns they could “burn like gasoline” if a stray ember ignites them during a dry season.
“Especially if you’ve got low humidity and high winds like they’ve had out there [in California]. You’ve got a recipe for disaster,” Young shared.
What needs to happen to make these suggestions a reality?
Sowell and Young are already discussing their concerns with Taylor County Judge Phil Crowley. As previously mentioned, they will discuss the topic with the Taylor County Commissioners Court at its next meeting on January 28, 2025.
Judge Crowley issued the following statement on the issues at hand, sharing, “I’m always interested in having discussions about how we can potentially improve public safety. Chief Young and I had a meeting on 1-10-25, where he expressed some concerns. It was too late to get a discussion on the January 14th Commissioner’s Court Agenda, but I do plan on all of us having a discussion on the January 28th Agenda where we can see if we have public safety issues and work collaboratively to address them if we do.”
Even if the County and the fire chiefs reach an agreement, it remains uncertain what they could actually implement. Sowell and Young say they may be constrained by state law, which often limits what a county governing body can do.
“Believe it or not, the state will grant authority to cities that they do not extend the same privilege to counties,” Young explained. “The cities have much broader authority granted by the state that they can do with ordinances and things that the counties don’t have.”
Whether or not legislation can be enacted, Sowell and Young hope to raise awareness about the dangers these issues pose, encouraging developers and residents to work together to ensure their neighborhoods are as prepared as possible for any emergency.
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