'It was chaos:' Fires erupt across Oklahoma during extreme winds

AccuWeather

Storm chaser Mike Scantlin reported live from Mannford, Oklahoma, on the evening of March 14, as multiple dangerous fires burned throughout the state.

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00:00Multiple fires have already broken out across several states including Texas and Oklahoma and for a closer look at the dangerous situation

00:07We're joined now by storm chaser Mike Scanlon

00:10He's been covering this fire west of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he joins us right now from Manford, which is just outside of Tulsa

00:20Yeah, that's right Damien, you know this area pretty well

00:23No, unfortunately this area was ravaged by wildfires in 2012

00:27And I believe they had another round of wildfires here near or in town in the early 2000

00:32So the way that this area is sandwiched in the woods up against Keystone Lake

00:36They're just an unfortunate position for when we get these really strong dry

00:40low humidity wind events around the southwest early spring systems, but

00:45Earlier I was back here in this neighborhood. This video is incredible because

00:49back here in this neighborhood

00:51As the fire approached town, there are multiple structures on fire here now further west

00:58probably ten or so

00:59Homes or businesses burned to the ground hours ago as the fire crossed Oklahoma 48 south of town

01:05And now the fire is in town, you know the last live shot

01:08I wasn't really sure where the fire was but you know, the smoke tells you that it's pretty close to town or it's in town

01:12Well, you know

01:13I went back in this neighborhood whenever everybody was getting out of town and the fire is is absolutely in the neighborhoods on the south

01:20On Greenbrier Avenue here, so

01:23multiple fire crews back here

01:25I got out of there when I saw the Oklahoma Highway Patrol going door-to-door making sure everyone's out of here right before that

01:30I came up on the nursing home

01:39Just it was chaos I pulled in and made sure that everyone got out of there

01:42They had loaded up a bus and gotten everyone out

01:45So they were they had all the people out and they were just grabbing stuff

01:48So they didn't need any help with that

01:49But that was kind of a harrowing situation thinking that we have a nursing home

01:52in the path of this thing and pretty much all the businesses along 51 have evacuated and

01:57You know the neighborhoods on the south side of 51

02:10The neighborhood and now it's just

02:13Watching it wait and wait and to see where it ends up and you know, it's really close

02:18You can see the smoke starting to get darker here

02:21Strong southerly is the southwest at least probably 45 to 50 at this point. No stronger gusts

02:27Mike has there been a time where the wind has subsided at all or is it just been blowing all day?

02:35You know, it hasn't been

02:37Sustained as as much as it was earlier and that first branch came through

02:42It's been kind of hit or miss but whenever it's gusting it's like a sustained gust

02:45It'll be probably five minutes of intense winds and then a couple minutes

02:48It'll die down and then you'll get another blast coming through

02:51But I also just kind of wanted to pull up the infrared satellite just to show you how many fires we have

02:57across northeast, Oklahoma

02:58So big fire about 30 miles west of here in Stillwater west of Stillwater

03:03That's where Oklahoma State University is and then further south down towards

03:07Perkins and Carney areas also a big fire down there and then about 10 miles north of here

03:11There's another fire crossing the same Highway 48 here south of Cleveland. So, you know, there's just too many fires not enough

03:18Crews to really keep them under control. So and it's gonna be like this all night

03:22We're gonna have this problem tonight overnight and into tomorrow as these winds just will not die down

03:27Very low humidity extreme fire weather ongoing here in Manfred, Oklahoma

03:33All right storm tracker Mike Scanlon joining us right now from Manfred, Oklahoma Mike. Thank you so much for that update and stay safe out there

03:41And David you said you've been to that community. You're familiar with the area here and well

03:46Just a horrible situation there with home after home burned and destroyed today. Yeah, and he was talking about multiple

03:52Fires going ongoing there across parts of Oklahoma one of the cities that he mentioned was Stillwater

03:57Which is one of the largest cities there in Oklahoma, obviously Tulsa is the second largest city behind the state capital of Oklahoma City

04:04But yeah, this is gonna be an ongoing devastating

04:06Event here as we head throughout this afternoon and this evening, but also as we head into tonight tracking the risk of severe weather

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