Foresters Warn Hot Vehicle Parts, Dragging Chains Can Start Texoma Grass Fires

A pickup idling over dry grass, or a trailer chain skipping along the asphalt, can put fire in the ditch on roads Cooke County people drive every day. Texas A&M Forest Service names both as ignition sources in its wildfire prevention guidance, and the warning reaches Texoma while the county's official website announces a burn ban effective Aug. 10, 2026.

The agency's equipment guidance advises drivers not to drive, park or idle over dry grass, because a catalytic converter can ignite vegetation it touches, and it recommends securing towing chains and inspecting the trailer before every trip. A failing converter can eject hot metal fragments, the Forest Service says, and a tire blowout can let a wheel rim strike pavement and generate sparks. A statewide notice dated Feb. 19, 2026 connected warm weather, drought and dry grasses with increased wildfire danger and named vehicle heat and dragging trailer chains among the causes.

The National Weather Service's September 2026 drought update reports that prolonged heat and dryness erased much of the improvement from late-spring and early-summer rainfall, leaving moderate drought widespread across North and Central Texas and severe drought back in parts of North Texas. The Climate Prediction Center favors drought persistence across the region through the remainder of the warm season, the update says.

A wet spring can add to the danger that follows. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension says dense grass grown during rainy periods ignites readily and carries fast-moving wildfires when dry weather and strong winds follow. The Forest Service reported above-normal grass production near Wichita Falls in December 2025 and warned that those grasses, once dormant and freeze-cured, could dry quickly and support wildfire activity as winds increased.

Nine of every ten Texas wildfires begin with human activity, the Forest Service says, and the agency counts parking in dry grass and dragging trailer chains among common summertime equipment causes. One case sits in the record. A motorist parked and idled over dry grass on Aug. 1, 2020, starting the Mays Fire, which by Aug. 3 had burned an estimated 9,500 acres in San Saba and McCulloch counties and was half contained.

Oklahoma has logged the same causes. State Forester Mark Goeller reported on Feb. 10, 2019, that numerous fires in western Oklahoma began with dragging vehicle chains or with motorists driving on wheel rims after flat tires. Comanche County, Oklahoma, gives residents the same two precautions and warns that activities outside a burn ban's specific prohibitions can still ignite wildfires in hot, dry and windy weather.

Fire years here vary widely. Montague County's hazard mitigation plan records more than 43,000 acres of suppressed wildfire in 2006 against 292 acres in 2013, and a Texas Forest Service case study counted 125 wildfires answered by the county's volunteer departments from January through April 8, 2009, before the major outbreak the next day. In Grayson County on March 14, 2025, a federal incident review recorded 58-mph gusts and relative humidity in the low teens at the county airport as smoldering material from an earlier prescribed burn at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge escaped and burned three-quarters of an acre of neighboring private land.