Wildfire burns down multiple buildings in Missouri ahead of severe storms

AccuWeather

Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby reported live from Missouri on the evening of March 14, tracking severe weather after capturing incredible drone video of a destructive, wind-driven wildfire.

Transcript

00:00And storm chaser Aaron Brigsby, award-winning storm chaser Aaron Brigsby, is getting in a position

00:04to cover the severe weather. But Aaron, you're also covering a wildfire near Alton, Missouri,

00:09so what are you seeing out there? Yeah, good evening guys. I tell you it's been a productive

00:14day already and that's bad news for the folks of Missouri and many others that have been just

00:20getting overwhelmed. A lot of the fire danger, the dust storms we've been talking about in those

00:24blizzard conditions up north, and unfortunately the time clock is beginning to wind down ahead

00:29of the tornado threat here in the Missouri area down to Arkansas, really all the way down almost

00:34to the Gulf Coast ahead of an even bigger anticipated outbreak on Saturday. Now the

00:39wildfire that started here between Donovan, Missouri and Alton unfortunately did take out

00:45several structures. I'm not sure to the extent of those if it was houses or barns, so I'm waiting to

00:50clarify that. But they did say the wildfire chewed up over 40 acres before they were able to get a

00:55hold on it. And the winds have only gotten worse as the evening progresses and it's going to

00:59continue to get worse ahead of these severe thunderstorms that are going to be rolling

01:02through here. It's going to play a factor for a more supercellular threat that's going to pose

01:07the highest danger for those strong tornadoes into the overnight hours and early morning hours

01:11as they push east. Aaron, we're fortunate that they got a handle on this particular fire because

01:16with conditions like that, I could see it being the case where some of these fires may not get

01:21contained until the rain rolls in. Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And I was even talking to a

01:27few of the firefighters there as we were coordinating with them and they told me that

01:30they were really happy that they were able to get a handle on this humidity, which sounds weird to

01:34say ahead of a severe weather day, got as low as 20% before this next moisture surge comes up here

01:40and it's going to play a factor in that tornado threat into the overnight hours. And the unfortunate

01:46thing is, is that if they didn't get a handle on this wildfire, these winds are only going to

01:50continue to get worse upwards of 30, 40, even 50 miles an hour into the overnight hours. So good on

01:56those crews. A lot of those were volunteer firefighters. This particular part of Missouri,

02:00they're still working with older equipment and the fact they were able to get that knocked down

02:03so quick with the equipment that they had and the limited resources run was nothing short of

02:08remarkable. They were very well prepared today ahead of this fire threat and they have been on

02:12top of it from the get-go and they're going to continue being on top of it in case any more

02:16hotspots pop up or any more fires pop up across this particular area of Missouri.

02:22Looking off to the south and to the southwest, we're getting, seeing on radar at least,

02:26and visible satellite, lots of dust being blown from pretty much the Texas Panhandle in southwest

02:31Oklahoma. Looking to the south and the southwest, are you seeing anything like that? Any of

02:35unobscured or any obscured sunlight? I was seeing a little bit earlier and it was kind of hard to

02:42decipher if it was from wildfire smoke or some of that blowing dust. It was kind of that milky

02:47color to the sky above the sunshine and that has since kind of dissipated. I think a lot of it is

02:52kind of hanging off into the west but those folks like you were mentioning just a bit ago across

02:56Iowa and northern Illinois, they are likely going to see a lot of that dust plume come upward and

03:01we actually just last week in the midwest had what we call a dirty rain where the rain was mixing

03:05with that dust and it caused to have a bunch of filthy cars across a large portion of the area

03:10and people were kind of wondering what the heck was going on and I expect that to be the case

03:14again except this time across Iowa into northern Illinois and even portions up into the Kansas City

03:19area as well. Thank you so much for the update. We'll check in with you here coming up. Yes,

03:25this is going to be a very active situation and area that Aaron's reporting from. Absolutely.

03:31Lots to track here, Damien, and the severe weather threat is escalating in many areas.

03:35Aaron, thanks for your reporting. We'll be looking forward to talking to you quite a bit more here

03:38over the next few days.

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