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Hot, dry and windy weather in Oklahoma has fueled numerous wildfires and prompted authorities to urge nearly a third of residents in the small town of Woodward to flee.
Matt Lehenbauer, director of emergency management for Woodward and its nearly 12,000 residents, said the evacuation recommendation covers about 4,000 people. It’s voluntary, he said, because Oklahoma prohibits mandatory evacuations.
The wildfire in Woodward, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of Oklahoma City, is approaching a “worst-case scenario,” Lehenbauer said, but it has not affected the city’s most populated area.
A fire in Beaver County, at the base of the Oklahoma Panhandle, about 217 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, alone consumed about 15,000 acres, » said the Oklahoma Forest Service.The agency video published of golden farmland against a backdrop of tumultuous flames and black smoke rising and evading like a thunderstorm.
“The fire in Beaver County continues to spread,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement. “Winds are gusting to over 65 mph.”
Stitt said he was notified at the state emergency operations center, which was monitoring the largest fires, including one in Texas County.
The fires have consumed fuel along the western and northwest areas of the state due to unusually hot weather, which the National Weather Service said was expected to reach up to 25 degrees above normal During the day, southwest wind gusts over 60 mph were accompanied.
It was not immediately clear whether any people had been injured or whether any structures had burned.
The Beaver County fire spread to Kansas on Tuesday, causing » said the state forest service. Firefighting efforts are focused on the city of Englewood, the Kansas Forest Service said.
Governor Laura Kelly had published an emergency proclamation Sunday, warning of dangerous fire conditions through Thursday.
The Kansas Emergency Operations Center was staffed Tuesday by the state Fire Marshal’s Office, the Kansas Forest Service, the Kansas Highway Patrol and the state Department of Transportation, state officials said. Parts of Interstate 70 and U.S. 50 were closed because wind-driven dust created poor visibility, Kansas officials said in a statement.
The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture said temperatures along the state’s western edge could reach 85 degrees Wednesday.
The weather service office in Norman, Oklahoma, said the fires could persist at least until Friday. The state Department of Agriculture said in a statement that conditions will begin to weaken Thursday as winds shift from southwest to northwest, bringing in cooler air.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, new fires also broke out in Texas, New Mexico and Missouri as hot, dry air settled into the Central Plains following a storm front over the weekend.
The National Weather Service said Tuesday that more than 21 million people are under fire weather watches, triggered when high winds and dry weather are expected to create an extreme fire danger. Another 11 million people were under a red flag, which warns of an impending critical fire, according to the agency.
