hotsoss: Wildfires in NE Oklahoma County

Yesterday afternoon, wildfires in north east Oklahoma County burned out of control, damaging and destroying several homes. The Central Oklahoma REACT team was activated at around 15:30 pm and many members responded to the area. Below is the official report that I submitted to the REACT Board of Directors........

On April 6, 2011, around 13:00 pm, I was at work, monitoring a wildfire that was destroying land and homes in the area around Post Rd and E Wilshire Blvd. Later in the afternoon, President Toner took us to level 2, which means we were to contact him and let him know if we were available to respond to the huge wildfire. I was receiving updates from NEWS9, Mike Weiss and Terri Owen. At 15:30 pm, unit 728 called me and said he was heading up to the fire to see how he could assist. I left my office at 4 pm and headed up there as well.

I arrived on the scene at 16:30 pm and approached an Arcadia police officer who had the road blocked. I identified myself and informed him that I was there to assist in evacuations and traffic control (if needed) and that I had other team members on the way as well. He told me to pull off the road and to stand by until other REACT members arrived on the scene. Shortly after I arrived, Unit 728, 722 and 723 arrived. We all put on our reflective vests and stood by for a few minutes until we were given assignments.

As we stood by, a motorist came by and informed the officer that her brother was still in a house, trapped by the fire, with no transportation to escape. The officer refused to allow her through, but he did allow me to go through and try to find this guy. I was given the address and directions, however, the smoke was so thick, trying to find an address or a street was difficult. I stopped and asked an OCPD officer, who was blocking traffic, to pull the address up on his map. Since I wasn’t familiar with the area, the officer volunteered to go with me, so I followed him.

Once we found the address, we turned into the long drive. The drive was very rough and bumpy….and there was fire all around us. It was so smoky, you could barely see where to drive. Once we arrived, I got out of my truck, ran to the front door and started banging on it. There was no answer, so I tried the doorknob. As I opened the door, a man in his 30’s was coming to the door. I advised him that he needed to leave because his house was about to catch on fire. He didn’t want to leave, but the officer that was with me persuaded him too. He got in the police car with the officer and I got in my truck. By then, the fire had almost reached the house and the sides of his driveway were on fire. My main goal was to get out of the driveway without my truck catching on fire. It was a bumpy ride, but I made it out of there. My eyes were burning and watery and it was getting hard to breather with all the smoke.

We returned back to the area where the road block was set up and delivered the man to his family. I stood by again, waiting for my next assignment. While I was waiting, a news crew from KOCO wanted to interview me. I went ahead and did the interview with them and shortly after that, I was told there was another man who was trapped in his house and needed to be evacuated. This time, myself and unit 723 (Tanner Owen) responded. As we arrived at the house, there were several other officers on the scene, trying to get the man to leave. He refused. We could not make him leave, so we headed on out. On our way back out, we passed two or three mobile homes that were on fire. We headed back to the area where the roadblock was and stood by for another assignment.

While waiting, we were informed of another property that the fire was about to consume. Myself and unit 714 (Daak Love), headed over to the property. There were no brush pumpers in this area, so we called for some assistance. The homeowners had several horses and the fire was getting closer and closer to their land. The man of the house was on a dozer, trying to move some dirt around, but it was not doing any good. Myself and 714 advised the people they needed to evacuate, so one of their neighbors brought a horse trailer over and they started loading the horses up in the trailer. It was not an easy task. The horses were scared and did not want to go. I tried to help corral them, but since they did not know me, I just made it worse….so I stayed out of the way. Several brush pumpers arrived on the scene and proceeded to put the fire out. While they were fighting the fires, we were trying to get the horses in a trailer. Once we finally got the horses loaded up, we all left the area. As we were leaving, I had noticed the fire had gotten worse and more brush pumpers were coming in. Myself and unit 714 headed back to the roadblock to stand by for further assignments.

There were no more evacuations, so most of us stood by blocking traffic. Most all of the law enforcement agencies that were there with us blocking the road, had left the area, which left us in charge of blocking traffic. As nighttime settled in, the fires were finally being contained and there was less traffic. President Toner (unit 732) decided to go ahead and release us from the scene, although, a few REACT units stayed to assist with traffic control. We had a de-briefing and were released from the scene at 21:30 pm.