A series of large fires sprang up in northeast Oklahoma City Tuesday afternoon, engulfing structures and threatening homes in a 12-mile area near the intersection of Britton Road and Air Depot Boulevard. Firefighters spent Wednesday checking on hotspots and making sure flare-ups were contained.
Officials say they have not found an official cause for the blaze.
“It’s currently under investigation,” Oklahoma City Fire Department Chielf Keith Bryant said. “We had our fire investigators out yesterday afternoon and through the evening, and the were conducting interviews with some of the residents out here in this area to see if they could get any information, but right now we don’t have an exact cause determined.”
Firefighters worked to get the blaze under control through Tuesday night and all of Wednesday. Bryant said the department was concerned with weather conditions throughout the effort.
“It’s still under control, but we have to watch the conditions today, because they’re going to be just like they were yesterday with the high winds,” Bryant said. “We’re absolutely concerned about conditions today, but we believe we have the resources out here to deal with the situation properly.”
Residents in the area prepared for the potential of an oncoming inferno in different ways. Some, like David Beren Richard of the Apple Valley subdivision, doused their roofs with water just in case.
“We’re out of the yellow zone so we’re definitely alright,” Richard said, hose in hand.
Other residents had spotters near the line of fire.
“We work for Kimray, Inc., an oil and natural gas production company,” Jason Andrews said. “And our CEO’s house is two miles that way up by Memorial, so we’re just keeping tabs on how close it’s getting to him.”
“We’ve brough a bunch of shovels and different things, so they’re there ready to fight it that way,” Kimray worker and UCO alum Kyle Bowler said.
Some of the onlookers who had gathered near Britton Road were putting up people who had been inside the evacuation zone.
“We haven’t been evacuated yet,” Gary Egger, from Shadow Ridge, said. “Jim (a friend who was being interview by NewsChannel 4)’s evacuated, he moved up to our house and we’ve just been sitting up there watching the TV, and thought we would come down here and see whether his house was going to be okay or not.”
The American Red Cross of Central Oklahoma has already begun operations in the affected areas.
“We actually have had around 20 volunteers out, both yesterday, last night and today,” Mary Jane Coffman, manager of Disaster Services with the Red Cross, said. “We’ve got teams that are helping support the first responders—the firefighters, police and EMSA—that are out there fighting the fires, we’ve taken them meals, snacks and water and Gatorade, that kind of thing out there for them.”
The Red Cross has also set up a temporary shelter in Forest Park for victims of the fire as well as people who were not able to get back to their homes in the evacuation zone.