Wind conditions should ease, helping crews battle wildfires

Published 10:27 am Wednesday, March 8, 2017

HUTCHINSON, Kan.  — Winds are expected to slow down Wednesday, but weather conditions are still not ideal for emergency crews battling wildfires in four states that have killed six people, choked the air with smoke and destroyed hundreds of square miles of land.

Bill Bunting, forecast operations chief for the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center, said late Tuesday that the powerful gusts that fanned the wildfires in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas should ease to about 10 to 20 mph on Wednesday. He said temperatures should peak in the 70s, with afternoon humidity low.

“These conditions will make it somewhat easier for firefighting efforts, but far from perfect. The fires still will be moving,” Bunting told The Associated Press. “The ideal situation is that it would turn cold and rain, and unfortunately that’s not going to happen.”

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Nearly 6 million people live in areas at risk for critical wildfire conditions Wednesday, including Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, the Storm Prediction Center said Wednesday. Forecasters said conditions were also ripe for fires in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska.

Kansas wildfires have burned about 1,025 square miles of land and killed one person. The Kansas Highway Patrol said Corey Holt, of Oklahoma City, died Monday when his tractor-trailer jackknifed as he tried to back up because of poor visibility on a Kansas highway, and he succumbed to smoke after getting out of his vehicle. Two SUVs crashed into the truck, injuring six people, state trooper Michael Racy said.

Authorities said Tuesday that about 70 structures had been damaged or destroyed in the Kansas fires.

About half of the state’s charred land is in Clark County, along the state’s southern border with Oklahoma, where 548 square miles have burned and about 30 homes have been destroyed, said Millie Fudge, the county’s emergency manager. She said helicopters will dump water on the flames Wednesday, but that she expects the burned land estimates to increase.

Another 235 square miles burned in neighboring Comanche County, Kansas, with smaller amounts of burned land from separate fires spread among six other counties.

The large Kansas fire started in Oklahoma, where it burned an estimated 390 square miles in Beaver County. Officials said a separate blaze scorched more than 155 square miles of land in neighboring Harper County, Oklahoma, and was a factor in the death of a woman who had a heart attack while trying to keep her farm near Buffalo from burning. Oklahoma forestry officials said they hadn’t been able to contain the fires at all as of Wednesday morning.

State emergency officials in Oklahoma also reported that eight people have been treated at hospitals for breathing complications caused by the smoky air.