A horse tries to escape a wildfire burning in Slaughter, Oklahoma, 3 August 2012. The horse was eventually rescued. Jerry Laizure/ Norman Transcript

By MARC SANTORA
4 August 2012 Firefighters in Oklahoma struggled on Saturday to contain at least a dozen wildfires that have burned more than 80,000 acres near Oklahoma City. Fueled by searing temperatures and whipped by high winds, the fires forced hundreds of people to flee and had burned dozens of homes by late Friday. Oklahoma and other Midwestern states are suffering from one of the worst droughts in recent memory. Temperatures were expected to reach 113 degrees and winds 20 miles an hour on Saturday, creating similar conditions to those that fueled the fires on Friday, said Forrest Mitchell of the National Weather Service office in Norman, Okla. The only injuries reported as of Saturday afternoon were minor ones to several firefighters. […] Gov. Mary Fallin, after touring the town of Luther on Saturday morning, described the damage as “devastating.” On Friday, fires had destroyed at least 25 homes, a day care center and other businesses there, according to the State Department of Emergency Management. “Our challenge is that there are so many fires across the state, our resources are pretty stretched,” Ms. Fallin said. The blaze knocked out the power in Luther, disabling water pumps and making firefighting more difficult. The town of 1,244 people, about 20 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, had to be evacuated. The biggest wildfire on Saturday was in Creek County, near Tulsa, where an estimated 32,000 acres were burning. The lack of rain has helped fuel wildfires in several states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas. As much as two-thirds of the country has suffered from drought this summer, which has killed crops, driven up food prices and caused feed shortages. And conditions grew more dire in several states in the last week. “We saw drought continue to intensify over Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas this week,” said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and author of the Drought Monitor at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. “It’s hard to believe that it’s getting worse, but it is, even with some rain in the region.” State officials said that with each state’s firefighting and emergency response systems stretched thin, there was little they could do to help neighbors in an outbreak like the one in Oklahoma. On Friday, Oklahoma officials evacuated people in four counties. While Oklahoma City’s metropolitan area appeared to be safe, dozens of homes in other towns and counties were destroyed, the agency said. State officials also closed several major highways and roads.

High Winds and Drought Fuel Oklahoma Wildfires Boats sit in the cracked earth at Morse Reservoir in Noblesville, Indiana, 16 July 2012. Michael Conroy / Associated Press

By Laura J. Nelson
4 August 2012 Firefighting crews battled triple-digit heat, dry winds and multiple wildfires Saturday that scorched dozens of homes and miles of dry grassland near Oklahoma City and Tulsa, officials said. Some of the fires, but not all, were under control Saturday. Columns of smoke blackened the sky and threatened grasslands that have become tinder in the most severe drought the United States has seen since 1956. Hundreds of people in four counties evacuated Friday. Authorities closed two state highways and parts of Interstate 44 – the freeway that cuts between Oklahoma City and Tulsa – for several hours Friday night. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin toured Luther, Okla., a small town north of Oklahoma City, on Saturday morning, calling the fire and its damage “heartbreaking.” Photos: Drought in the Midwest Officials estimate 47 homes and other buildings were damaged in the flames near Luther, where about 4 square miles were burned. About 40 more buildings and 78 square miles were destroyed in a fire in Mannford, near Tulsa, that was not under control Saturday afternoon. And another fire that started near Noble, Okla., and moved south toward the University of Oklahoma in Norman destroyed at least 25 buildings, some of them homes. The fire near Luther was started by an arsonist, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department said. Deputies searched Saturday for a man in a black Ford F150 pickup who witnesses said set a newspaper on fire and tossed it out his window into a field, Sheriff’s Department spokesman Mark Myers told the Los Angeles Times. “The fire is out,” Myers said. “Now we have to find him.” Officials have said this could be the worst fire season in Oklahoma history. […]

Some Oklahoma wildfires, made worse by drought, now under control