Grass fires elsewhere in the drought-stricken region had apparently destroyed a couple of tiny Texas towns. Other fires had destroyed homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate in Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Posted on 01/02/2006 7:43:14 AM PST by JustaCowgirl
CARBON, Texas -- Weary firefighters worked through the night attempting to contain three major fires, including one 25-mile-long blaze that charred farm fields, barns and some homes in Eastland County.
Grass fires elsewhere in the drought-stricken region had apparently destroyed a couple of tiny Texas towns. Other fires had destroyed homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate in Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Officials warned that the dry, gusty conditions and extreme fire danger would continue.
"We don't know where we will be today," Oklahoma City Fire Department Maj. Brian Stanaland said Monday morning. "At this point, we consider the whole city a target for grass fires."
Helicopters and airplanes were lined up to join the battle Monday against the lengthy, 22,400-acre blaze near Carbon and Gorman in Eastland County, about 125 miles west of Dallas, said Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Traci Weaver.
Firefighters were close to encircling the fire early Monday, but were concerned that a fore shift in wind would complicate efforts, Weaver said.
Crews flying over other sections of northern and western Texas to assess the damage Sunday reported the tiny communities of Ringgold and Kokomo, together home to about 125 people, had essentially been wiped out by flames, Weaver said.
Crews planned to conduct a house-to-house search Monday for casualties in the two towns, as well as in Cross Plains, about 25 miles west of Carbon, where more than 90 homes and a church were destroyed by flames last week. In all, four deaths were reported last week in Texas and Oklahoma.
In Carbon, Bill Sandlin and his wife packed up their clothes, pictures and his gun collection, then drove off just as flames started to engulf their house and three barns.
"We hate losing our stuff, but at least everybody's OK," Sandlin said.
About 20 homes were burned out in the 13-mile stretch from Ringgold to Nocona, Montague County Judge James Kittrell said Monday. Six homes were destroyed near Mineral Wells, Weaver said.
Dozens of fires blackened the Oklahoma landscape as wind gusted to 50 mph, including 25 blazes within Oklahoma City that forced the evacuations of two neighborhoods. Four homes were destroyed, Stanaland said Monday.
Altogether, dozens of wildfires swept across more than 5,000 acres of Oklahoma and destroyed at least a dozen homes on Sunday, said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Emergency Management.
Just across the Texas state line in New Mexico, 170 elderly residents were moved out of two nursing homes in Hobbs on Sunday, and a casino and community college in the town of 29,000 were evacuated.
On Monday, crews were mopping up after the four fires that blackened more than 65,000 acres of grassland and burned more than a dozen houses and barns in the Hobbs area.
"It's real calm; nice and cool," Dan Ware, New Mexico state Forestry Division spokesman, said Monday morning. "Basically, all the fires laid down and just kind of went to bed."
Most of the evacuated nursing home residents had been sent back to their quarters Monday, but 60 residents of one of nursing home and 50 to 75 other residents of the Hobbs area were still evacuees, said Ernie Wheeler, Hobbs emergency operations center director.
Ware had cautioned that the calmer overnight conditions wouldn't mean the area was out of the woods.
"As soon as the temperature comes up tomorrow (Monday), as soon as the wind comes up _ bam, we're off to the races again," Ware said Sunday.
Praying for you, lil. Thanks for the report. I can imagine that you haven't slept well. I'm in nowhere near that much danger, and it is kind of keeping me awake, even.
People living out in the open in the grasslands are really at severe risk, with no one right around them to help them watch for fires. And the fires can move so fast. It has to be scary. I also pray for the volunteer firefighters in these areas, they are seriously overstressed right now.
The day after the Mustang fire last week I watched some idiot on the freeway toss his cigarette out the window. People are morons.
Gov. Keating set aside money for cloud seeding for just such occasions as the current drought? Wonder when its right to seed for rain?
Thanks for the prayers. Everyone needs to donate to their local volunteer fire depts. They have run out of funds. They are truly heroic. They have jobs to go to, and their own farms and ranches to worry about, but somehow have found the strength to fight the fires all night. This has been going on since November!
This map is not accurate. I would push the extreme fire danger toward the Arkansas boder of Oklahoma. We are +20 inches below normal in Green Country.
Yes, some of ours in Oklahoma say they have been working for days with little more than a catnap. Plus I'm sure it's true in TX as well as here--their equipment is starting to suffer, too. Ours are mostly volunteers, and money for replacement equipment does not come easily.
The guy we saw all summer on Fox from the Hurricane Center made connections to the hurricanes. The last drought came after lots of 'canes.
bookmark
Well, I love Oklahoma, but I also have to admit that some of those people Jeff Foxworthy talks about are my neighbors. We've been really lucky so far--no one's done any fireworks that I've heard, and there have been no fires nearby. But a lot of Oklahoma is sure suffering.
Last night the news teams broke into most of the regular programming to cover the fires--and the fire personnel pleaded with the public to knock it off with the darned trash-burning, fireworks, and ciggy-tossing. Some of these folks think it's their God-given rights to burn their trash and toss their ciggies out the windows of their vehicles. Idiots.
My guess? Gov. Henry, a Dem, has probably already spent it on something useless.
... and if settling the state makes you an expert, my dads family settled Oklahoma, he was 1/4 Lumbee Indian, and 1/4 Choctaw, and my moms family came to Texas in 1832 so I must be an expert also ...
Here are some maps to check out, but they have not been updated in the past few days. I assure you, its getting worse by the day:
http://www.tamu.edu/ticc/large_fires.jpg
http://www.tamu.edu/ticc/proclamations.jpg
http://www.tamu.edu/ticc/maps/burnbans.jpg
And here is the Current Situation Report:
http://www.tamu.edu/ticc/predictive_services/tx_sitreport.pdf
More information is available on the website: www.tamu.edu/ticc
We were 25 inches below our average rainfall for 2005. Thats more than half of our average.
OKC Fire Department actually saw people tossing out cigarette butts and have turned in their license plates. That is what made me wonder.
They are morons! I cannot believe anyone would toss out a cigarette butt in wet times not to mention how dry it is here now.
I heard the same thing -- idiots is right. We really haven't had anything around either one of us that I know of and hope the "idiots" stay out of our areas.
Thanks for the reminder, Lil. I will do just that today. Everyone in Oklahoma and Texas and New Mexico, think about your local firefighters and what you can do to help. Some of these people are taking money out of their own pockets to buy supplies, I have heard. And they're exhausted from overwork.
Don't forget New Mexico. We had a staff meeting earlier this morning and two of our employees were or had relatives out of their homes. Residences for both were saved by firefighters or the wind shifted slightly. However, one said they lost a barn and adjacent homes were destroyed. We won't get the full story until tomorrow because the local paper isn't published on Monday's.
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