FRITCH, Texas – In the year following the largest wildfire to every burn in Texas history, Texans across the state have learned many lessons.
But none might be more important than the cause of the fire, which has been hiding in plain sight for years and, quite honestly, shouldn’t even be a surprise.
“There’s still times out here that the wind will be blowing just right and I’ll smell, you know, that just the smell of the grass fire,” Charles Clark said while standing outside his home in Stinnett, Texas.
He’s one of many who lost their homes. But his story is a bit different.
Clark, a volunteer firefighter, was off trying to save someone else’s home, while his home burned to the ground and his cat inside died.
“We get a call later that evening from my brother saying, ‘Yeah, your house is gone.’ And that I mean, after that, it’s kind of a blur,” said Jennifer Walker, who lost her home in Fritch, Texas.
The Smokehouse Creek Fire was the result of near-perfect fire conditions: unusually warm temperatures, incredibly low humidity and high winds.
In a matter of days, it would become the largest wildfire to ever burn in the Lone Star State, scorching more than a million acres of land and causing well over $1 billion in damages.
But here’s the thing - it’s cause was avoidable.
“I’m mad about it,” Walker said. “I’m mad for the other families that have, you know, going through the same thing as we did.”
The cause of the fire is in Walker’s front yard of her old home. It’s also just a mere few feet from her new home across town.
This fire was sparked by electric poles.
A state investigative committee finding that unmaintained power poles are the cause of several wildfires that burned and ultimately merged into the Smokehouse Creek Fire.
“There needs to be accountability there,” she said. “Their jobs need to be done. Someone is responsible and it should have never happened.”
The power company in the Panhandle, Xcel Energy, accepted our request for an interview.
“Xcel Energy acknowledged that its infrastructure was involved and our infrastructure was involved as an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek Fire” said Adrian Rodriguez, president of Excel Energy in Texas and New Mexico.
We met at their headquarters in Amarillo, Texas on a warm January day, just before the one-year mark after the fire.
It was months after the cause of the fire came out and claims from people and businesses who lost everything started pouring into Xcel Energy.
The electric pole that sparked the Smokehouse Creek Fire was inspected just one mother before high winds knocked it to the ground, leaving live wires to ignite grass.
According to state investigators, the pole was a “priority one replacement.”
Xcel Energy didn’t replace it in time.
Gage Goulding: “Do you think if that was replaced, you probably wouldn’t be here having this conversation?”
Adrian Rodriguez: “No, I think one of the things that we think about is that do we wish those types of things would have never happened? Absolutely. We’ve changed and upgraded pole inspection programs. And of course, we work with the state with system resiliency plans so that we can harden our system.”
A resiliency plan.
Houstonians, does that sound familiar?
It’s a similar plan that CenterPoint Energy rolled out after the double whammy from the May 2024 derecho and Hurricane Beryl a few months later in July.
Both of those storms left millions of Houstonians without power.
In response, CenterPoint Energy rolled out a robust resiliency plan. And it turns out that the work they’re doing will actually help protect Houston from wildfires.
Gage Goulding: ”Do you think that’s a step in the right direction?”
Adrian Rodriguez: ”In some cases, some of the hardening measures that you do for one type of weather event will help you for multiple weather events.”
That’s good news here in Houston.
But as we all know, this work is typically a reaction to something immensely devastating.
Outside of Charles Clark’s house, you can see empty fields and hills as far as the eye can see.
But just steps away, there’s a tree, that’s somehow still standing. When you rub your finger over the bark, you’ll get a coat of black ash from the fire that destroyed his home, and many other, one year ago.
It’s a reminder of the loss, but also the opportunity as the Panhandle turns the page on a new chapter.
“This is going to be our new house,” said Walker as she opened the front door to her new home.
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