Red Cross Steps In To Help Families Affected By Fires

The colder temperatures this time forces people to scramble to find a ways to keep their homes warm.

The Red Cross Of Oklahoma has responded to 277 house fires in Tulsa County alone in 2018, and provided more than $100,000 dollars in financial assistance to families.

Fire crews have been busy this time of year putting out fires in Tulsa County and Red Cross has been there ready to help.

Johnnie Munn, Red Cross of Oklahoma said, "We will get a call for a dispatch for a home fire. We'll get a team gathered together to respond to the fire. We have a criteria where we try to get there within two hours. We'll send teams of two responders."

The colder temperatures keep Red Cross crews even more busy.

 "Obviously when its colder people use heaters or other ways of heating their homes that may not do so well so we will have an increase in fires," said Munn. 

He says of the 277 house fires and 774 total victims Red Cross helped In 2018, they provided $150 thousand dollars in assistance to those families.

They have a system to determine how much assistance each family needs based on whether the house is livable or non-livable.

"If it's livable or not liveable, that gets a dollar amount per person. If it's non livable then we ad in a lodging amount," said Munn. 

He says Red Cross provides care kits as immediate assistance to house fire victims with personal hygiene items.

The the the financial assistance can continue for years after the initial incident.

"Lets say they found a new place to live and need rent or their old home they can get back into it and they need help with something else, we can help with that too," said Munn.