Bastrop, Texas Burns In Wildfires (VIDEO/PHOTOS)

Wildfires have burned across Texas in recent weeks, and regions like Bastrop, Texas are still fighting the flames. The Texas county near Austin has been battling a raging wildfire since Sunday.

According to KXAN, officials confirmed on Tuesday that two people died in the fires, but their identities were not revealed at the time. Estimates suggest over 550 homes have been lost in the region.

According to Governor Rick Perry's website, the state is working to help with wildfire response by providing two CH-47 Chinook Aircraft and three UH-60 Blackhawks to help fight fires in Bastrop County. The state has also deployed to the county "emergency management personnel, highway patrol troopers, air assets and a mobile communications center."

The site also reports that in the past week, Texas Forest Service has responded to 181 fires burning over 118,400 acres, with new fires in Bastrop and other counties.

Perry took an aerial tour of wildfire damage near Austin on Tuesday, and said, "These fires are serious and widespread, and as mean as I have ever seen."

In a KXAN video news report, an anchor described Bastrop wildfires as still "burning out of control." Jarrod Wise reported from a Bastrop convention center where evacuees can receive information and donations. Because winds are dying down, officials hope that progress might be made on combating the fires.

As of Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that over 1,000 homes had been destroyed in Texas wildfires. Texas has experienced the worst drought since the 1950's.

Scroll down to watch the KXAN report, and look at AP photos/captions from the Bastrop, Texas wildfires below.

WATCH the KXAN report:

Comments

[Howard Scott Pearlman 59]

08:51 AM on 09/07/2011

Now in Perry's Texas communities are selecting not to send volunteers to fight Perry's Conflagration Fire . Perry's Government will take volunteers only if they bring their own equipment and supplies. Communy Volunteer Fire Companies are already reeling from the 75% State Cutback of funds that Perry gave them. Communities already strapped for funds that pay for the supplies and equipment will have to pay for new supplies and equipment to fight fires hundreds of miles from home with no chance of being reimpersed or repaid, because Perry has decided it is far worthier to keep massive tax breaks for RICH Oil Companies and Corporations sitting on a ton of Cash then to prepare for a fire.

Perry is doing this to his beloved Texas so just imagine what Perry will do to parts of the country he doesn't give a damn about.

Howard Scott Pearlman

[wildharleyeyes05]

01:17 AM on 09/07/2011

I FEEL SO SORRY FOR THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE LOST THERE HOMES TO THE AWFULL FIRES. MY PRAYERS GO OUT TO YOU. BUT ITS GREAT HOW THE COMMUNITIES HAVE PULLED TOGETHER HELPING ONE ANOTHER. THAT IS GREAT THAT DURING SUCH BAD TIMES EVERYONE WORKS TOGETHER/

[jaspdohertylaw]

11:00 PM on 09/06/2011

those texas fires are spreading faster than marcus bachman's butt cheeks at a young republicans convention

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

08:49 PM on 09/06/2011

This is heartbreaking. I used to live in Bastrop, it was such a beautiful place, all the pine trees, the old houses, the Opera House. Bastrop was the first capital of Texas, before Austin was built. It had such lovely old buildings. I hope they survived, but looking at these pictures it's hard to imagine. I hope no more lives are lost, that is so tragic.

Please, dear people of Texas, realize that this is not just a drought or a freak fire season. This is a permanent change of climate. If you do not absolutely have to live in Texas, please leave. If you are a farmer or a rancher, please sell out while you can. Move north to where it is is cooler and wetter, the places where all the rain that used to fall on Texas is falling now.

If you don't ranch or farm and you can get a job north of the desert zone, please do so. Either sell out or take your insurance money and escape while you can. Rebuilding in the same place is insanity.

[jmjintexas]

12:31 AM on 09/18/2011

Permanent change of climate? REALLY? Like the droughts in the early 1900s? Or the floods in the 30s? Or in 2007? As Texas A&M Professor of Meteorology and Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon writes: "the drought here in Texas is not independent of the floods elsewhere: if some places don’t get enough rain, others get too much. The simultaneous occurrence of droughts and floods is normal. The same weather pattern that made the Pakistani floods possible in summer 2010 also brought the Russian drought. Now, the intensity might be unusual, or the frequency might be unusual, but global warming does not get credit for the simultaneity"