72 replies to this topic

[Volare]

Walsh is being evacuated due to a grassfire.

 

And 30 and 20 are both shutdown outside of 820.

[John T Roberts]

I am actually amazed with the way the fire departments were able to relatively contain the fire fairly quickly.  The flags at Buffalo West were flying straight out.  The wind was basically out of the WNW.  It made sense to me to evacuate Walsh Ranch because the area is surrounded by prairie.

[JBB]

I was able to see the smoke from Southlake and Bedford.

[John T Roberts]

I went to lunch down the street (east) on Camp Bowie and I could see the smoke as I was returning back to the office.  The radio news was talking about the fire to the west, and I said that had to be the smoke.  When I arrived back at the office, the actual view of the smoke was blocked by our buildings sign tower.  Straight out my window to the actual northwest, all I could see was clear sky.

[NSFW]

I saw the smoke when I got off work at 3:30 over in Lancaster. 

[bclaridge]

I first saw the smoke from a parking garage at Baylor All Saints hospital where I had parked to go to a doctor's appointment.  At first the smoke looked like clouds, which seemed strange on a sunny and very dry day until I actually noticed that the "clouds" were smoke from the fire.

 

Moral of the story is that we need to be careful when it comes to building development on the wildland-urban interface, or creating such an interface through new development.  This fire could have been a lot worse had (more) structures burned, especially if it had been a subdivision like Walsh.  There is just a lot more that can burn in a subdivision than on an open prairie, provided that the fire can start burning structures.  That said, wooded areas offer more fuel available for burning in dry weather than does an open prairie, so we also need to be careful with planning developments where there are a lot of trees around as well.

 

 

I was able to see the smoke from Southlake and Bedford.

 

There was also a smaller fire up in Flower Mound and Argyle, north of Grapevine Lake.  I don't recall there being a large plume with that fire, but are you sure you weren't seeing a plume from that fire as well?

[JBB]

I was seeing the smoke from the Walsh fire. It was on the horizon straight ahead as I traveled south on Grapevine Highway (southwest) at one point. The wind direction would have put the smoke from the Argyle fire behind me.

[Doohickie]

I can smell the smoke all the way at my home in South Fort Worth.

[John T Roberts]

Last night, I smelled the smoke at my house as well.  I didn't smell it so much this morning when I let the dogs out and I left for work.

[Doohickie]

It must have drifted; I could smell it more this morning than last night.

[Doohickie]

Since Ft Worth doesn't allow "suburban towns" I think this goes well in this thread.

 

Forgot the "Joe's Pizza & Pasta" though.

[Doohickie]

So Cook Childrens is building a fire station in Walsh Ranch?

[Doohickie]

This is all interesting... I saw a 1920s print article for the subdivision where my parents' is (their home was built in the 1950s).  Anyway, early on one of the first things they did in the subdivision was organize a fire company.  The article makes it sound like it was facilitated by the developer.

[Doohickie]

Oh yeah, the fire company in my parents' old neighborhood is volunteer.  "Blue lighters":  red lights are for actual emergency vehicles; volunteer firemen have blue lights to use when on their way to a call.  I think the captain is a paid position, rest are volunteer.

 

When I was a kid there were no pagers or radios; the firemen were summoned with a ship horn mounted in the fire hall.  They would blast it a certain amount of times for each type of call, so maybe 2 was a medical emergency, 3 was a car wreck, 4 was a house fire, etc.  As a kid you knew to get the hell outta the street when you heard the horn start because the volunteers would soon be tearing down the street.  Since we were just a couple blocks from the fire hall a lot of the firemen chose to live in our neighborhood.  And yep, they were highly qualified but still volunteer.

 

I went over to the website for the fire company and when you volunteer they have two choices, one for full blown fire fighting in dangerous environments, and one for basically support tasks outside of the danger zone.  I imagine they don't let you do the latter without a boat load of training.

[elpingüino]

This week the Fort Worth Zoning Commission will hear a rezoning request for the southwest corner of Walsh Parkway and I-30, to allow up to a 12(?) story office building.

The planned use for this specific tract is a multi-story office building. This use is allowed in the current zoning, but the height proposed exceeds the current limitation of 60-ft ... a waiver requesting a max height of 170-ft is being requested.

https://www.fortwort...3/zc-23-181.pdf

[Austin55]

The zoning change was approved. The building proposed is an 8-story professional office building about 170' tall. 

[steave]

That's going to be a tall-ish building with nothing around it, not even trees, out there.

 

Google Earth 3D path tool shows that One Ridgmar Centre is about 160 feet. So even if they cut it down, it still will stand out.

[steave]

It's kind of wild how much of that site plan in the image above is parking lot.

[rriojas71]

It's kind of wild how much of that site plan in the image above is parking lot.

It's not really that wild considering everything they build in Texas has this much parking and more.

[mmmdan]

 

It's kind of wild how much of that site plan in the image above is parking lot.

It's not really that wild considering everything they build in Texas has this much parking and more.

 

 

I was also going to say that it looks pretty normal to me.  Especially for a location where there will be approximately 0 people getting there by anything but a personal car.

 

I can think of more than 1 location around town that had so much parking, that they built a new building where you can spend money in the parking lot and still had plenty of parking.

[Crestline]

Are they going to build a new overpass on the 20, at my red circle?

 

[Jeriat]

Are they going to build a new overpass on the 20, at my red circle?

 

I expect it.

[elpingüino]

Are they going to build a new overpass on the 20, at my red circle?
 

Yes, you can see it more clearly here. I wonder if the timeline has been published?

Some slides from the ZC. Lots of multi-family mixed use and retail planned for the area of Walsh in between 20 and 30.