Coweta and Sand Springs Fire Departments keep area fires at bay

Wildfires burned hundreds of acres of land near Coweta and Sand Springs Sunday night. <br/><br/>The biggest fire was south of Coweta, and News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says the fire in Wagoner County

Monday, November 28th 2005, 12:42 pm

By: News On 6

Wildfires burned hundreds of acres of land near Coweta and Sand Springs Sunday night.

The biggest fire was south of Coweta, and News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says the fire in Wagoner County was finally contained at about 10 PM Sunday, but it continued to smolder and the wind scattered sparks Monday, starting several smaller fires.

The Coweta Fire Department spent all day checking hot spots, after a fire scorched land and just about everything standing - except homes. Some residents stayed up most of the night and stayed from work to help the fire department protect their property. Resident Josh Robinson: "Just watching this stuff along this, trying to help these people right here, these homes, because if it got in all this stuff, it would go up pretty quick."

Sunday night, the fire raged through thick underbrush in a rural neighborhood. The wind blew it right up to homes. Firefighters saved all the occupied homes. Some outbuildings and sheds burned, along with hundreds of acres of pasture and woods.

The fire was sparked by power lines in the salvage yard and the high wind pushed it east. It burned a barn and some old cars, then continuing going east, covering several square miles.

Bill Adtkins took stock of his losses. The fire burned right to his backyard - after it burned through his barn. â€œWell, we lost a barn, some old cars we had parked around they burned up too, we had a boat out there, it burned up too.â€ While the barn is a loss, the horses usually kept in the barn were saved. Adtkins is counting what was saved more than the relatively little that was lost.

Over in Sand Springs, the fire department considers their night a success. 400 acres of land burned, but firefighters saved every structure, in hilly terrain that made the fire that much harder to fight.