Fires destroy nearly two-dozen homes, injure at least five in central Oklahoma

Wednesday, December 28th 2005, 6:09 am

By: News On 6

MUSTANG, Okla. (AP) _ After evacuating his 77-year-old mother from the house where he grew up, Sidney McDowell set about saving it from a grass fire that blackened fields and set homes and other structures ablaze across this Oklahoma City suburb.

``We had three water hoses running trying to keep everything wet,'' McDowell said Tuesday as other family members stood guard around the white wood-framed house. ``We had a lot of embers land but we were keeping an eye on it.''

Several homes in Mustang were not so lucky, as wind-driven fires destroyed at least five homes and charred about 400 acres in the western Oklahoma City suburb. Statewide, nearly two-dozen structures in six communities were destroyed and five people suffered minor injuries, ranging from smoke inhalation to burns.

Oklahoma City Fire Maj. Brian Stanaland said one firefighter suffered heat exhaustion and a child suffered minor burns to his hands when a shed caught fire. That blaze apparently was started by children playing with fireworks, Stanaland said.

Barely a block away from McDowell, Jane Hankins hugged a friend and wept as she watched orange flames leap from the roof of the house she and her husband shard for 13 years.

``We worked long and hard on this house,'' Hankins said. ``But that's O.K. Nobody was hurt.''

The fires in Mustang were blamed for the injuries of two firefighters, one of whom suffered smoke inhalation. It also caused power outages in a 1 square-mile area because of burned utility poles, officials said.

Firefighters also put out grass fires in the eastern Oklahoma City suburb of Choctaw, where eight homes were destroyed on Tuesday, the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management reported.

Residents concerned about the fire spreading even more rushed to their homes.

``Everybody is out now watering their yards and standing in their yards,'' said Harold Percival, who lives about a mile from the fire area. He said smoke from the fires had eased by late Tuesday afternoon.

``It's clear as a bell now,'' he said.

An evacuation center was set up in Mustang for people who had been in the path of the fires, which resulted in the temporary closure of highways through central and southern Oklahoma, officials said.

Smoke from a separate grass fire limited visibility along Interstate 35 and forced officials to close the interstate south of Pauls Valley between Oklahoma Highways 19 and 29 in Garvin County.

I-35 and U.S. Highway 77 reopened Tuesday evening, said Mills Gotcher, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

In Seminole County, homes were evacuated in Wewoka as fires burned in the area, forcing the closure of U.S. Highway 270 and Oklahoma Highway 59 for a time.

In southern Oklahoma, fires dotted the landscape in Bryan County, where at least three structures were destroyed and some people sustained smoke inhalation injuries, said Tim Cooke, the county's emergency management director.

``Our entire county is just about on fire,'' he said. ``It's everywhere.''

Authorities shut down a five-mile stretch of Oklahoma Highway 78 and parts of State Highway 91 because of the fire but the highways reopened about three hours later.

In Carter County, a fallen electrical line apparently sparked a blaze that destroyed at least one home near Lone Grove, authorities said.

``I heard a gentleman hooked a guide wire on a (utility) pole with a tractor,'' said Ed Reed, director of Carter County emergency management. ``It snapped the line and when the line hit the ground, that's all it took.''

Elsewhere in the region, a fire burned homes and acreage in Choctaw County, near the Texas border. Boswell Assistant Fire Chief Larry Lankford said three homes were destroyed, more than 1,000 acres were burned and two people were hurt in Tuesday's fires.

The fires forced the closure Oklahoma Highway 7 near Reagan in Johnston County late Tuesday, Gotcher said.

Oklahoma's above-average temperatures, wind gusts reaching 40 mph and low relative humidity created a high fire danger on Tuesday. Much of Oklahoma has been mired in a drought, with rainfall in the Oklahoma City area nearly a foot below normal for the year.

A Red Flag fire alert posted for parts of the state because of the combination of high wind and dry vegetation was allowed to expire as winds died down overnight.

Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the emergency management department, said grass fires had also were reported in Hughes, Okmulgee and Love counties.

``We want to remind everybody there is a burn ban across the entire state _ no outdoor burning whatever,'' she said.