'The town is on fire:' Storm chaser reports from Oklahoma

AccuWeather

Multiple homes burned to the ground in Mannford, Oklahoma, as storm chaser Mike Scantlin reported from a windy, fiery scene live on the AccuWeather Network Friday evening.

Transcript

00:00For a closer look at the dangerous situation, we are joined right now by storm chaser Mike

00:04Scantlin. He's been covering a fire just to the west of the Tulsa Metro in Oklahoma. He joins us

00:10right now from Manford. I know that spot. So Mike, yeah that's a pretty powerful plume there behind

00:16you. Give us an update. I'll tell you what, this thing is burning into Manford right now. It's a

00:25devastating situation for Manford, Oklahoma, which is no stranger to wildfire or extreme fire

00:31activity. You know, a fire burned through town in the mid-2000s, devastated a lot of town and

00:38looks like that's happening again. I'm on Oklahoma 51 here, about a mile and a half east of Oklahoma

00:4348. You know, south of town as this fire moved in, multiple homes burned to the ground on Oklahoma 48.

00:50That's the video that I've got here. So multiple homes either currently burning or already burned

00:56to the ground. Businesses on the south side of town as well. And it looks like the actual town

01:01of Manford here is on fire. I mean, the fire's burning right into town here along Oklahoma 51.

01:08And it's about 15 miles west of Tulsa along the Lake Keystone area, if you're unfamiliar

01:13with the area. But you know, I'm getting blasted with wind. I'm sure you're having trouble even

01:17hearing what I'm saying, even with the respirator here. But a lot of fire crews present,

01:24a lot of law enforcement. They're doing everything they can, but this extreme fire

01:29conditions, it's just, it's impossible to get a handle on these fires once they get out of control.

01:35And right now, it looks like that's the way I'm handling it here in Manford, Oklahoma, guys.

01:39Very sad to see this stuff. Mike, do you have any idea how many homes have been

01:43damaged or destroyed? I know you can't really venture a guess necessarily.

01:48Oh, I, you know, this is apparently ongoing. I mean, the fire is in the town of Manford,

01:54just moved into town from the south. So, you know, I would estimate 10 or 15 structures that I saw

01:59south of Manford on the highway there, the Northside Highway, Oklahoma 48.

02:04Probably five or six homes, and then a couple of businesses and shops, outbuilding type of

02:08structures. But if this fire is in the town of Manford here, we've got, I mean, it's just worst

02:14case scenario here. Impossible to get a hold on these fires, and there are a lot of roads also.

02:19With the lake being right here, it's just, it's a bad situation. You know, the lake might keep the

02:24fire from burning any further once it gets to this point. And that's good news. But, you know,

02:29a lot of lake houses, and it's just, this is a lake town. So, you have a lot of infrastructure,

02:37and you have a town here just kind of sandwiched up against the lake. So,

02:41unfortunately, the fire is moving right into town. You can see, I mean, this is it right here.

02:45This is the town of Manford right now, currently burning, guys.

02:49All right, Mike Scanlon, we're going to go ahead and check in with you here coming up. I mean,

02:52from what he's reporting right there, I mean, Mike, thank you, but you can just see just how

02:57powerful, and just in that short video that we've had with him, you can just see how that plume

03:01behind him has just grown and just exploded in intensity right there. It was a little bit

03:06obscured, but now it's almost taking up the entire sky. So, this is what Mike's showing us

03:11here for us, and this is going to be the kind of conditions we are tracking across the Southern

03:15Plains. And the darker nature to that smoke, often a sign that we're dealing with things

03:19other than just vegetation burning, unfortunately. Structure fires embedded within this and so

03:24forth. Have you been to that town, Damien? Oh yeah, absolutely. That's the highway right there

03:27that you normally take to get into Tulsa. Okay. Tough stuff there in eastern Oklahoma. That's

03:33right. So, we're going to continue to track that and check with him. But in addition to the fire

03:36danger, we're also going to be tracking and taking a closer look here at the severe weather

03:39threat that we are following. And you can see that we have multiple severe thunderstorm and

03:44tornado watches in effect here as we head into this evening. And as of right now, we have one

03:49tornado warn storm here.

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