Talk:Bastrop County Complex Fire

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bastrop County Complex Fire/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sammi Brie (talk · contribs) 17:07, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Not much to do. I have some copy changes, questions about some wording and two references, and concern about one of the images' copyright status. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:50, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Copy changes

Take a fresh look given how long this GAN has sat, too.

Lead

• There are several uses of small font in the infobox. This should be avoided: see MOS:SMALLFONT.
• Within 48 hours, fires merged... The fires, perhaps?
• On October 10, the Bastrop County Complex was declared controlled and the fire was declared extinguished on October 29 after 55 days of burning within the fire perimeter. A comma is needed after "controlled", as this could be two separate sentences. User:Sammi Brie/Commas in sentences (CinS)
• Two people were killed by the wildfire and another twelve people were injured. Same, add comma after "wildfire"

Setting

• The drought began to materialize following a drier than average autumn and winter beginning in 2010, but worsened to widespread and extreme levels after March 2011, the driest March on record in the state; the average precipitation total statewide was 0.29 in (7.4 mm) compared to the 1981–2010 average of 2.18 in (55 mm). This sentence needs a split and also has a CinS issue best fixed by adding "it" before "worsened"
• The high temperature on September 4 was 101 °F (38 °C) and the relative humidity bottomed out at 20 percent. Comma after the temperature section (CinS)
• and of these 57 maybe "57 of which"?
• The moisture content of all vegetation types within Bastrop County The link is not needed as the second link to the county article in this section.

Fire progression

• attain water "obtain"?
• 2 businesses perhaps "two" businesses?

Firefighting efforts

• the crew were rescued but the truck melted in the fire Comma after "rescued" (CinS)

Evacuations

• The evacuation of Bastrop State Park was ordered at 3:16 p.m. CDT on September 4 while evacuation of neighborhoods south of Texas State Highway 71 began at around 3:30 p.m. CDT that day, less than an hour before the fire crossed the highway Comma after "September 4" (CinS)

Impact

• One person was found near Smithville and the other was found near Paige Remove the second "was found"
• Vegetation in the park was suffered extensively Remove "was"
• More than 16,200 acres (6,600 hectares) of forest burned in the wildfire and over 24 million ft3 (680,000 m) of timber was either destroyed or irreparably damaged, representing 78 percent of trees in the areas affected by the fire. Add comma after "wildfire" (CinS)

Aftermath

• of which 440,000 yd3 (336,000 m3) by April 2012 Missing verb

Sourcing and spot checks

There are two references to the generally unreliable International Business Times (43 and 50). Can these be replaced with other references from more reliable sources?

Earwig is mostly catching the handful of quotes we have in the article, so no issue there.

Random spot checks:

• 2: Rissel and Ridenour 2013 is a major reference used 12 times.
  • Regional setting: This area is composed of sandy soils, drought- resistant subspecies of many plants, and topography from flat to roll ing hills. The lost pines area, as it is called, is the westernmost distribution of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), separated from most of its counterparts by 100 miles of agricultural land. All three ignitions occurred in the same vegetation type, Loblolly pine overstory and understory dominated by yopuan (Ilex vomitoria). Y Y
  • During the Bastrop Complex Fire, the live fuel moistures were trending down to below historic lows in all vegetation types within the county. Y
  • On the morning of September 3, 2011, Tropical Storm Lee was just south of the central Louisiana coast and the counter-clockwise circulation was just beginning to result in northeast surface wind across most areas east of I-35 in Texas. Y
  • Tropical Storm Lee moved inland by late afternoon on September 4, but all precipitation remained east of I-45. High temperatures climbed, again, into the triple digits, and sustained winds of 12 to 14 miles per hour (mph) with gusts of 25 to 31 mph occurred near the time the fire started in Bastrop (Greg Murdoch, National Weather Service-Midland). Y Y
  • It was actually the result of three different ignitions in Bastrop County, TX, approximately 35 miles east of Austin, TX. Y
  • The ignitions burned together over the course of 48 hours Y
  • The main fire front traveled at a rate of 5 mph through pine, cedar yaupon mix mid-story, during the first several hours of the event. Y
  • By the end of the event, more than 32,000 acres were burned, an estimated 1.8 million trees were burned, and 1,696 structures were destroyed. The burned areas included a number of WUI subdivisions, unmanaged private lands, and 96 percent of Bastrop State Park. Is there a source for the exact 32,400 number that needs citing?
  • There was heterogeneous burning across the fire with some areas being lightly scorched and other areas completely consumed to the point that all nutrients were leached from the soil.
• 17: American-Statesman report on the fire. Wind gusts reaching more than 30 mph on Sept. 4 apparently severed trees at two locations that tumbled into the electrical lines, causing sparks that fell into the dry grass and tree litter below. At 258 Charolais Drive, in the Circle D subdivision northeast of Bastrop, gusts snapped a dead pine tree about 8 feet above the ground, according to the report. Y
• 60: Article on Bastrop ISD resuming classes on a Monday, which was September 12, 2011, date of original publication. Y
• 64: TFS press release on Saturday: State Highway 71 was re-opened today at 8 a.m. Y
• 70: Houston Chronicle article, used for power outages: As of Monday evening, 13 area subdivisions had been evacuated and the power cut to 3,800 homes, according to Bastrop County officials. Y
• 72: TFS update for September 18: Two civilians were found dead as search crews went through the charred subdivisions. Y
• 81: Antiquities report: The Bastrop County Complex Fire in September 2011, coupled with heavy rainfall in January 2012, led to severe erosion throughout the park. With essentially no ground cover following the fire, there was nothing to hold the sandy soils in place. Y
• 82: 2014 journal article: p. 192 ca. 39% of the ecoregion Y
• 85: 16,200 acres of forest burned; only 22% likely to survive (78% burned), about 24 million cubic feet lost. Y
• 89: Huffington Post article, used for in-text attribution of points of view in re: budget cuts affecting TFS. Y
• 104: 2020 KVUE article: The destruction cut off five years of property tax revenue for the county, school districts and emergency services. This doesn't quite seem to match our wording, that that was the cost of fighting it, but it almost makes sense. Can you justify this one a little bit?

Images

All the images are PD-USGov or libre licensed with an exception I'm unsure how to handle. I don't know who owns the copyright, if any, to the Drought Monitor images. They may be copyrighted. NDMC itself isn't a US government institution even though the government is involved.

@Sammi Brie: Thanks for the review and for the helpful link to CinS. I've edited the article to implement many of the suggested copy-editing changes. Regarding the 2 businesses, MOS:NUMNOTES specifies that Comparable values nearby one another should be all spelled out or all in figures... Are the numbers of homes and businesses destroyed by the fire comparable figures? Reviewing sources on the size of the fire, it seems that there are a wide range of values precise and imprecise provided from both journal articles, retrospective pieces, and news, but no clear authoritative source. Describing the scale as at least 32,000 acres seems to be most faithful description, so I've adjusted the article accordingly. For the tidbit on property tax revenue, I think I misread the sources; it appears moreso that the lost revenue resulted from the loss of taxable property, not the cost of repairs or fighting the fire. I've reworded the phrasing accordingly. I'm not sure of the copyright status of Drought Monitor images. The Drought Monitor's entry on the USDA data page suggests it may be in the public domain, and a USGS page vaguely suggests this may be the case. The Drought Monitor's permission page provides an attribution instruction for reproduction, but I'm not sure if that alone clearly describes its copyright status. —TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 18:45, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The numeral issue is fine, now that I read it again. It looks like the Drought Monitor is PD [1]. I've adjusted the licensing to use {{PD-USGov}} on Commons. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 18:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]