Firefighters in Oklahoma struggled yesterday to contain at least a dozen wildfires that have burned more than 80,000 acres near Oklahoma City.
Fuelled by searing temperatures and whipped by high winds, the fires forced hundreds of people to flee and had burned dozens of homes by late on Friday. Oklahoma and other Midwestern states are suffering from one of the worst droughts in recent memory.
Temperatures were expected to reach 113 degrees and winds 20 miles an hour yesterday, creating similar conditions to those that fueled the fires on Friday, said Forrest Mitchell of the National Weather Service office in Norman, Oklahoma.
The only injuries reported as of yesterday afternoon were minor ones to several firefighters.At least one of the fires near Oklahoma City may have been set deliberately, law enforcement officials said.
The police were investigating reports that a man was seen throwing flaming newspapers from the back of a pickup truck on Friday, Sheriff John Whetsel, who oversees the county that includes Oklahoma City, told the local news media.
The fire in that area, moving quickly as high winds spread the flames, covered 80 square miles before the winds eased and firefighters began to bring it under control.
Governor Mary Fallin, after touring the town of Luther yesterday morning, described the damage as "devastating". On Friday, fires had destroyed at least 25 homes, a day care centre and other businesses there, according to the state Department of Emergency Management.
"Our challenge is that there are so many fires across the state, our resources are pretty stretched," Ms Fallin said.
The blaze knocked out the power in Luther, disabling water pumps and making firefighting more difficult. The town of 1,244 people, about 20 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, had to be evacuated.
The biggest wildfire was in Creek County, near Tulsa, where an estimated 32,000 acres were burning.
The lack of rain has helped fuel wildfires in several states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas. As much as two-thirds of the country has suffered from drought this summer, which has killed crops, driven up food prices and caused feed shortages. And conditions grew more dire in several states in the last week.
"We saw drought continue to intensify over Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas this week," said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and author of the Drought Monitor at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
"It's hard to believe that it's getting worse, but it is, even with some rain in the region." State officials said that with each state's firefighting and emergency response systems stretched thin, there was little they could do to help neighbors in an outbreak like the one in Oklahoma.
On Friday, Oklahoma officials evacuated people in four counties. While Oklahoma City's metropolitan area appeared to be safe, dozens of homes in other towns and counties were destroyed, the agency said. State officials also closed several major highways and roads.
New York Times