Karen Gerken, a UNC Ph.D. student from Texas, left her family in August when the state was experiencing a severe drought.
That drought led to a wave of wildfires across Texas. These fires have forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes, fleeing from the growing flames.
Gerken heard from a friend Sept. 2 that her neighborhood, in a suburb of Austin, was being evacuated because of a local fire.
“Both my parents were in the neigborhood with my youngest brother,” Gerken said.
Gerken’s family originally went to a grocery store parking lot to wait out the fire, but by evening it was still raging, and they were forced to move in with family in the area.
It wasn’t until Monday that the evacuation order was lifted.
Gerken’s home was left untouched, but other homes in her neighborhood weren’t as lucky.
“Being so far away all the way in Chapel Hill just added to that helplessness that I felt,” Gerken said. “I just wanted to hug my mom and see my dogs.”
The fire that threatened Gerken’s home is just one of hundreds that have started across the state.
In the past week alone, the Texas Forest Service has responded to 181 fires, and 250 of Texas’s 254 counties are currently instituting burn bans.
“Austin is becoming so strict that they are not allowing outdoor grilling at this time and people are getting ticketed for flicking their cigarettes out of their cars,” said Brooke Zeluff, a UNC junior from Houston, in an email.
The worst of the Texas fires, the one plaguing Bastrop county, has destroyed almost 1,400 homes and killed two civilians, according to the forest service’s website.
“My experience was definitely traumatic, but there are people with far worse experiences out there so I consider myself very lucky,” Gerken said. “It could have been much worse.”
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