Fayette Lake Water Scooped by Planes To Fight Bastrop Fire

Pictured left is one of two firefighting planes known as “super scoopers” that flew into Fayette Lake to collect water to dump on the Powderkeg Fire in Bastrop County Tuesday, Aug. 1. A video shared with the Record showed the two planes skimming across the surface of the lake Tuesday afternoon. In less than a minute, the planes filled their tanks with water and took back off towards Bastrop. A nearby resident said the planes made three trips to the lake Tuesday afternoon. Walter Flocke, a spokesman for the Texas Forest Service, reported that the fire was 60 percent contained as of Wednesday afternoon. At its peak, the fire burned more than 100 acres between SH 71 and the Bastrop State Park. Flocke said the fire had destroyed at least one structure and one outbuilding as of Wednesday.