West Texas is still kickin'

Most of the impacted areas were not publicly accessible; Fort Davis update from our Texas Mountain Trail contact is this -
Very little of the scenic loop west of town was affected, I drove from FD to Valentine on that route this morning. While the fire was widespread, there are still many, many wonderful areas remaining intact.

Most dire needs are for fencing and feed; call Johnson's Feed in Alpine at (432) 837-5792 to arrange a donation.

The Fort Davis shelter (Grand Companions, where our little one, Nauga is from) also lost $1,000 in vaccines due to the loss of power and their washing machine went out thankfully their washing machine has already been replaced - so monetary donations are greatly appreciated!

Landmarks survived Fort Davis fire!

Fire summary from Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute

Here's a link for the benefit concert for the Fort Davis area. Latest on that: ...the event will most likely be a two-day event with a Friday night show at Padre's and a headliner show at the Jeff Davis County Park the next day. Stay tuned!

Best up-to-date fire and road updates are on Marfa NPR:
www.marfapublicradio.org
(This also happens to be the week of their fund raiser! *cough*)

As of April 11, this is the extent of the damage from Carolyn Ohl's blog.

***

It should be stressed that none of the fires have impacted Big Bend National Park, Post Park, Marathon, Sanderson, or the majority of Alpine.

And from the Tx Mountain Trail group:
Here's another way you can help Fort Davis: Plan a little roadtrip there this year. We were in Fort Davis this morning and the things you love about the town are STILL there...Fort, Observatory, charming downtown, lovely places to stay. One rain and it will start to green up. The fire deposits a little gift to the land--extra nitrogen that will make the mountains so green, you'll feel like you're in Ireland...
texasmountaintrail.com
texasmountaintrail.blogspot.com
twitter.com/trailgirl
youtube.com/user/TMTrail

They've got great updates on facebook, along with the occasional birding tidbit:
We saw a lovely thing at Fort Davis' Davis Mountains Lodge & Expeditions today, a place narrowly escaping fire. They recently put up a birding area near the Lodge's office with feeders and benches...and today the feeders were a busy place with birds singing and swooping in for food. The hummingbirds were particularly happy there!

...basically, the upside of fire is that birds will concentrate in areas that were not impacted (thankfully that includes almost all of our regional birding spots) and this will hopefully clear out some of choked vegetation from last year's incredibly overzealous spring.

Edit: TNC's Madera Canyon reportedly is unharmed as well!