Thanks Dot and Drawout. 

Drawout, I was so happy your home was able to be saved.  Knowing that was uplifting for my spirit as I said prayers knowing you and your wife also lived in the fire zone.  We just returned from down south.  It is a terrible situation to witnessed the power of fire and the destruction it caused for so many people. 

My prayers go out to all those in grief including my daughter, son-in-law and some of their close friends who also lost everything.  In the moment I know it is hard for the "young people" to be able to see into the future and have faith they can rebuild on solid ground.

Good news for my children is the mortgage is paid for so the land is free and clear even if they don't have a house on it.  About three acres of their seven acres did not burn.  To me that is also a blessing, although many more acres of forest around them is nothing but black trees standing.

Eyewitness to Texas Wildfires Watches Austerity Burn Rural Community

I knew the economic and political situation in Texas was dire, but I was completely unprepared for just how appalling conditions have become. As an emergency medical technician (EMT) from a large city, I volunteered to go to rural Bastrop, Texas, to assist the residents who are fleeing from the wildfires raging there; many of them have been injured. I was looking forward to working in a small community for a change. As an urban EMT, I have witnessed too many drug and alcohol overdoses, stabbings, beatings and shootings, along with vehicular fatalities.

Continued at link.  I found this to be an excellent article.  Here is a little more from the article.

Most Bastrop residents did not make the connection between Gov. Rick Perry's deep budget cuts to local police and fire departments and the chaos they were facing, or criticize the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) stripping of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of funding and staff to address national disasters (nor did they mention the ongoing wars around the globe sucking money from domestic programs).