What's the process for issuing mandatory evacuations during wildfires in Texas?

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Residents in several counties in Texas’ Panhandle were issued evacuation orders as multiple wildfires have burned and spread in the area since Monday.

One of the fires, called the Smokehouse Creek wildfire in Hutchinson County, has now grown to 850,000 acres, making it the second-largest wildfire in Texas history, according to maps and archives from the Texas A&M Forest Service.

In Texas, county judges are largely tasked with emergency management decisions, including declaring an emergency — which is allowed under Texas law chapter 418, explained Travis County Judge Andy Brown.

“That then allows the county judge to operate on his or her own without having to go to the commissioner’s court or other groups to do things like issue mandatory evacuations,” Brown said. Those orders become enforceable by law, he explained.

In Travis County, those decisions are often made at the Austin-Travis County emergency operations center. We got a look inside that center during a winter storm last year.

Inside that operations center, Travis County and Austin leaders — including EMS, fire, police and transportation officials — will gather and determine appropriate steps.

“They advise me on what they see and what needs to be done. And then I would take the step of saying, ‘you know what, the ESDs and the fire department advise us that this neighborhood is at severe threat of severe damage, injury or loss of life or property. And people need to leave immediately,” Brown said.

Incident command training

Last week, Brown and other local leaders were in College Station for a training that worked through incident command for large-scale events.

Those involved included Austin’s Interim Chief of Police Robin Henderson, Travis County Chief Emergency Management Coordinator Eric Carter, Chief of Austin-Travis County EMS Robert Luckritz and Austin Fire Chief Joel Baker.

“We never know what the next disaster will be exactly. But it’s always helpful for us to practice together and to address them together,” Brown said.

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