Less than a year after a wildfire burned 96 percent of Bastrop State Park’s 6,613 acres, the park is bouncing back. Here's a photographic trip through the park, where camping areas and hiking trails having recently reopened.

Less than a year after a wildfire burned 96 percent of Bastrop State Park’s 6,613 acres, the park is bouncing back. Here's a photographic trip through the park, where camping areas and hiking trails having recently reopened.

Gov. Rick Perry has said the Rainy Day Fund should be preserved as an insurance policy against natural disasters, but Texas can't actually dip into it until the next legislative session — in 2013.

Over the past year, Texas has battled wildfires that cover an area larger than the state of Connecticut. It's straining the budgets of both state and local firefighting units, and as the prospect of a multiyear drought looms, wildfire season is in no way over.

Gov. Rick Perry has unsuccessfully tried to get a meeting with President Barack Obama, who will be visiting Texas today, to discuss the federal government's denial of a wildfire disaster declaration in Texas, as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports.

As the wildfires have worsened, costs have mounted at a rate of over $1 million per day. The state will pay the majority, though local governments and the feds will also pay a share.

Since 2009, the Texas Forest Service has helped douse more than 2,600 wildfires like those scorching West Texas. We mapped the area most effected by the blazes, which burned nearly a half-million acres and destroyed 300 homes. 

Your afternoon reading: Budget cut-induced furor; an ongoing controversy at UT; House approval for school board disclosures.

The Texas Forest Service is the lead state agency tasked with fighting wildfires. Among its recent challenges: a 3,000-acre blaze on an army base near Brownwood.