(UPDATE at 12:48 p.m. CDT, May 7, 2014)
Woodward County Emergency manager Matt Lehenbauer reported on the Ready Woodward Facebook page that the wildfire northwest of Woodward, Oklahoma burned one home. Two people have been injured and were transported by aircraft.
Mr. Lehenbauer said the fire is contained after burning 13,711 acres. National Guard Blackhawk helicopters dropped 45,000 gallons of water on the fire and were assisted by Aero-Flite’s water scooping CL-415 air tanker.
Resources assigned to the fire on Wednesday include two task forces with a total of
6 dozers, 6 engines and 2 Task Force Leaders, 1 Operations Specialist, 1 Air Attack Platform, 2 Single Engine Air Tankers, and 1 CL-415 water-scooping air tanker
Another fire earlier this week east of Woodward between Moorland and Quinlan is controlled after burning 14,100 acres.
KOCO has an article and photos of Aero-Flite’s brand new CL-415 water scooping air tanker (Tanker 260) that relocated from Florida to Oklahoma City to be used on the fires. Michelle Self posted a video on her Facebook page of it scooping out of Lake Liberty (map) while it was working on the fire near Guthrie, OK. The lake was five to ten miles west of the fire which would have contributed to very fast turnaround times for the 1,600 gallon water drops.
Aero-Flite’s new Air Tanker 260, a CL-415 working the #wildfire in OK http://t.co/WGtEB3iUcP pic.twitter.com/u3EqfHq3b4
— Fire Aviation (@FireAviation) May 7, 2014
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(Originally published at 5:43 p.m. CDT May 6, 2014)
A wildfire northwest of Woodward, Oklahoma is spreading rapidly Tuesday afternoon, forcing residents to evacuate. The fire is between Woodward and Fort Supply.
The following was sent out Tuesday afternoon May 6 at 4:05 CDT:
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE WOODWARD AND HARPER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT.
A WILDFIRE WAS LOCATED FROM 4 MILES NORTHWEST OF WOODWARD NEAR HIGHWAY 270 AND EAST-WEST COUNTY ROAD 36… TO HIGHWAY 34 ONE MILE SOUTH OF THE HARPER COUNTY LINE. THIS WILDFIRE WAS MOVING RAPIDLY TOWARD THE NORTHEAST INTO FAR SOUTHEAST PORTIONS OF HARPER COUNTY. RESIDENTS IN THE PATH NEAR AND EAST OF HIGHWAY 34 SHOULD IMMEDIATELY EVACUATE TO THE SOUTH AND EAST.
PERSONS CAN GO TO THE WOODWARD PIONEER ROOM LOCATED AT 9TH AND OKLAHOMA IN WOODWARD.
At 3:31 p.m. CDT Tuesday the fire was approximately 11 miles long and at least 2 miles wide, spreading toward the northeast. It was moving from Woodward County into Harper County, according to Woodward County Emergency Management Director Matt Lehenbauer. The fire had been contained earlier in the day but began spreading again around 4:30 p.m., according to Mr. Lehenbauer.
Two National Guard Black Hawk helicopters are assisting firefighters on the ground.
The weather forecast for the rest of the afternoon in the fire area is for 91 degrees, a 28 mph wind out of the southwest gusting to 39 mph, and a relative humidity of 6 percent — conditions that are conducive to rapid fire spread. The wind should be decreasing Tuesday night by about 50 percent.
260 was dispatched from Lakecity fl in the afternoon and was able to get to OK and haul water (looked like 5-10 minute turns). The 415 clips along a fair bit faster than the 215
The scooper ( Aero-Flite’s new CL-415) from Florida was well received by the ground crews on the Guthrie fire. It was working this afternoon on the Woodward fire as well.
Oklahoma and surrounding States have some dandy fire weather occurring. As reported yesterday Guthrie Incident a scooper was coming from Florida. Couldn’t the ordering/filling units find a two engine tanker slower and farther away? Sounds like fire season 2014 is off to a ………….start. On a positive note fire siege 2008 in California I flew with a Oklahoma Guard Blackhawk crew sent out to help. DIALED-IN!!