KILLEEN, Texas — The extreme fire danger remains a top concern for first responders across the state and even citizens.
The Texas A&M Forest Service raised the state wildfire preparedness level to a four. The agency is also predicting the I-35 corridor to be a hotspot when it comes to wildfires for the next several days.
Killeen Fire Chief James Kubinski has been ensuring his department is prepared for the predicted extreme fire danger. He said with the threat level being higher, they are monitoring conditions closer. Kubinski also has made sure his firefighters are trained and ready to battle fires on wildland-urban interface.
The fire chief has also had to make the tough decision to hold back Killeen firefighters from responding to statewide resource requests.
"When we get to a stage like this, even though we don't have any active fires in the area, we want to make sure all of our resources are out and ready and available to deploy here," Kubinski said. "We need to stand ready for our community and when conditions change we will go back to helping the rest of the state wherever they need."
The request for state resources has grown in the month of August as conditions have been right for wildfires to ignite.
"What we're seeing and what we're anticipating is that we're just starting our wildland fire season," Kubinski said. "We're going to go probably well into October, November before we start to see some relief."
The Texas A&M Forest service said in a press release on Tuesday that there's been 119 wildfires that have burned more than 9,000 acres in the last week.
Kubinski told 6 News Killeen Fire is having to constantly monitor weather conditions as they can change quickly and not in their favor. He said there are certain times of the day when conditions become more unstable than others.
"The highest potential for fires to occur that are going to be of a large nature happen between noon and 6 p.m. That's when it's driest, humidity is at its lowest and that's when winds tend to pick up and its highest heat," Kubinski explained.
Killeen Fire has their fair share of grass fires along the interstate, but there biggest worry in wildland fires are large undeveloped areas of land that are in between businesses or subdivisions.
Kubinski said limiting outdoor cooking and not throwing cigarette butts out the window will help ease their workload and also protect the land.
If you see anything, report it immediately because the sooner that's done, the sooner it can be put out by first responders.
You can monitor wildfires in the state here.