Wildfire in Hartley, Texas

Lightning sparked a wildfire in Hartley County Texas on May 14th and it was known as the Roman Fire. This fire would quickly spread to over 2,000 acres due to the winds and dry fuels. At one point the fire caused a shutdown of US highway 54 from RM3296 all the way to NM, due to smoke and low visibility. Mandatory evacuations for areas near highway 54 and FM 767 were briefly needed. On outbuilding structure was lost to this fire. The fire would go on to burn 6,294 acres. before being contained on the afternoon of the 16th.

A prolonged hot and dry period was set up for the Panhandles in mid May. And with the lack of significant rainfall to help transition the grasses from cured to green, the fuels were well above the 90th percentile in dryness. While it's not uncommon for a high based storm or two to occur west of the dryline and create dry thunderstorms, on May 14th it was certainly more scattered to nearly widespread storms that occurred. Several lightning ignitions occurred, and given that the storms had severe dry microbursts associated, the fires that ignited would spread quickly. Thereafter the Panhandles would go through several consecutive days of critical to extremely critical conditions. And the issues of any new starts, as well as active fires that ignited on May 14th would take another run were of high concern. Overall 20 wildfires ranging from over 34,000 acres to some as small as a few acres would ignite in the TX/OK Panhandle between the 14th and the 18th.