NBC 5 plans to stream live coverage of the fire beginning at about 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) Friday. Check back and refresh this page to see the livestream and to get the latest updates. At 11:15 CT a.m., officials said they hoped to start the fire by 11:30 a.m.
Fire crews have begun burning a luxury house that's teetering atop a crumbling 75-foot cliff over a Central Texas lake.
Bales of hay saturated with diesel fuel were scattered around the inside of the garage of the 4,000-square-foot home and lit on fire Friday morning.
From Chopper 5, at about 10 a.m. workers were seen bringing three bales of hay into the garage along with a gallon of gasoline. Workers then began breaking out windows and partially knocking holes in some walls to help the fire spread, once it's started.
Starting the fire took longer than expected Friday after overnight shifting of the ground has made preparing the home for the fire more difficult, NBC 5 reported.
Once the fire is out, Tom Hemrick, Hill County's emergency management coordinator, said the owner will have the charred debris moved to stable land and crews will then remove the slab.
The family bought the $700,000 home on the 1200 block of Overlook Court in January and noticed cracks in the walls soon after. The house was soon after condemned and the owners evacuated the property about two weeks ago.
The family told The Associated Press they were assured the property was stable when they bought it.
Chunks of both the cliff and the home have been tumbling into Lake Whitney in recent days.
Bringing Down the House
Randy Cephus, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, confirmed to NBC 5 Thursday that the homeowner had three options for removing the home from the site before it falls into the lake.
The first option was to wrap the home with a large net and then pull it away from the edge of the 75-foot cliff, so that the debris could be safely removed from the site. That option was determined not to be feasible, leading engineers to consider the second option — burning the home to the ground.
Officials did consider a third option: Letting Mother Nature eventually claim the home through landslides. The last option, which would likely include removing debris from Lake Whitney, is also the most expensive option.
"You hear about landslides happening in California," said Kari Poole, who lives in nearby Whitney. "But not in Texas. Not on Lake Whitney. Not where you live."
No matter which course of action was chosen, the homeowner, who is in Florida believed to be tending to a family matter, will be responsible for the financial cost of the cleanup and removal of the debris.
NBC's Julie Fine, Scott Gordon and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: NBC 5 News