It has been a very busy week for me.
It all started on Wednesday afternoon. Due to low humidity and high southerly winds, many wildfires broke out in Oklahoma. One in particular, in the Jones-Spencer area, was huge and was causing authorities to start evacuation procedures. The area was not highly populated, but there were still several homes in the area that were being threatened. Plus, there were lots of tall cedar trees that were catching on fire and embers were blowing to other areas and catching them on fire.
Several of our REACT members were monitoring the situation and, as the afternoon went on, the fires got bigger and bigger and more fire equipment was being called in. Because of the seriousness of the situation and the fact they were calling in more resources, our REACT team was activated and every available unit was sent to the fire scene. I arrived first at 16:30 and other REACT units arrived shortly thereafter. For the rest of the evening (a total of 5 hours), our team provided traffic control, crowd control and assisted in evacuations. I personally assisted in one evacuation, in which a man was in his home with no transportation and fire was all the way around his house. Myself, and an officer with the Oklahoma City Police Department, worked together and got the man out. I also assisted in another evacuation, however, the man we were trying to evacuate refused to leave.
At one point, the fire threatened a resident that had a pasture behind it. The fire had reached some cedar trees and flames were shooting in the air. There was no fire trucks anywhere, so I tried to make contact with someone in order to get some brush pumpers to fight this fire….before it got to the house. Plus, the resident had around 5 horses sheltered in a fenced in area, so we had to try to get the horses in a horse trailer to get them out of the fire’s way. Myself and another REACT member spent almost an hour helping the residents evacuate. Fortunately, the brush pumpers were able to extinguish the fire before it got to the pasture. As the evening went on, we were doing less evacuations and more traffic and crowd control. At around 21:30, our president DE-activated us and we met for a small DE-briefing. I made it home by around 22:30 and was exhausted. I never got a chance to eat dinner, so all I had were two small bags of peanuts.
The next day, we were still under a high fire risk because of the low humidity and high winds. I knew the morning would be slow, but I kind of figured something would happen during the afternoon….and it did. At around 15:00, one of my co-workers informed me that there was another grass fire in the Jones/Spencer area. So, I turned on my TV…and there it was. The winds had picked up and re-kindled some fires. This time, they were much closer to populated areas and more homes were in danger. Once again, they were calling in more resources to help fight the fire. I contacted a few REACT members to see if they felt we should be ready to activate. We actually had a Board meeting scheduled for Thursday evening, but we knew with the fire danger so high, we may have to cancel the meeting and tend to the fires in NE OKC.
After speaking with our president, vice-president and chairman of the board, it was decided to go ahead and activate our team and see who was available to respond to this grass fire. I arrived on the scene at around 16:45 and attempted to locate the command post. As I continued to drive, I came upon a police officer who was blocking the road. I was about to stop and speak to him when I noticed lots of smoke down the road and people running frantically. I was not sure what was going on, so I headed that direction to see if I could be of assistance. A fire was about to jump the road and catch a lady’s house on fire. I grabbed my shovel and fire extinguisher and did what I could do. The shovel did not help me at all, so I used my fire extinguisher. I used it all up and the fire continued to burn.
I continued to assist with the fire attack until a brush pumper arrived on the scene. Then, I moved further down the street to assist in traffic control on a bigger fire. One of the National Guard’s Blackhawk helicopters was back making water drops. As I saw the helicopter approach, I got ready to take a picture. Little did I know that he was about to dump 600 gallons of water right next to me. As he started dropping the water, I moved out of the way as fast as I could. Fortunately, I did not get wet, however, a cameraman from KFOR got drenched…as did other firefighters. I stayed there for a while and once they had that fire under control, I met up with three other REACT units. We rested for a few minutes and then I headed over to the police officer I saw when I first arrived to see if he had anything for us to do.
I introduced myself to him and let him know our team was here to help. He gave me different intersections that he needed blocked off, so I took the list back to the other REACT members and gave each member an assignment. For the rest of the evening, all we did was handle traffic and crowd control. At around 20:15, the officer called my cell phone and released our team. We all met at a convenience store, held a DE-briefing and then went our separate ways.
After last night, I had already decided I would not be available to respond on anything today. After spending two straight nights in NE Ok County, I was ready to rest and to spend time with my family. This evening, I have two lawns to mow and tomorrow I have one. We are also having a big birthday luncheon for my daughter and my niece tomorrow afternoon. I may make myself available for tomorrow night, but I am not sure yet. Sunday is the Redbud Classic, so I will be busy with that most of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment