Wildfires in 4 states kill 6, force thousands to flee
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Crews grappling with vexing wildfires that have charred hundreds of square miles of land in four states and killed six people soon may get a bit of a break: Winds are forecast to ease from the gusts that whipped the flames.
Bill Bunting, forecast operations chief for the Oklahomabased Storm Prediction Center, said Tuesday that the powerful wind gusts that fanned the wildfires in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas should diminish to about 10 to 20 mph.
He said temperatures should top in the 70s, with afternoon humidity forecast to be low.
“These conditions will make it somewhat easier for firefighting efforts, but far from perfect. The fires still will be moving,” Bunting said. “The ideal situation is that it would turn cold and rain, and unfortunately that’s not going to happen.”
In addition to those four states, conditions were ripe for fires in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. That followed powerful thunderstorms that moved through the middle of the country overnight, spawning dozens of suspected tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.
Kansas wildfires have burned about 625 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.
Most of the state’s charred land is in Clark County, where 30 structures were damaged, said Allison Kuhns, a county emergency management office spokeswoman.
About half of those structures are near Englewood, one of two communities evacuated. Kuhns said there also have been significant cattle losses as entire ranches were engulfed.
That fire started in Oklahoma, where it burned an estimated 390 square miles in Beaver County. Officials say a separate blaze scorched more than 155 square miles of land in neighboring Harper County, Okla., 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.
The largest evacuations elsewhere were in Reno County, Kan., where 10,000 to 12,000 people voluntarily left their homes Monday night, said Katie Horner, a state Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman. She said 66 people were in shelters Tuesday in Hutchinson, 40 miles northwest of Wichita.
Among them was Shelley Wilson, who fled with her disabled son and pets from a blaze encircling her farm outside of Hutchinson. She returned later that night with her adult daughter to retrieve her tractor.
“I don’t know if I have a home,” Wilson said at the shelter Tuesday as her daughter did her best to lighten her mood. “In case I needed to rebuild, I wanted to at least have my tractor.”
Retiree Sheryl Stessen said she grabbed her cat and fled her apartment on the outskirts of Hutchinson when she saw the fire quickly go from a puff of smoke to a big, orange ball.
“Most of us are generally grumpy,” she said Tuesday. “I just want to go home.”