none directly near us (that i'm aware of), but the smell of fire is very strong this morning. hope all of you are safe.
dody

Just talked w/Seedmama this morning. The fire made it to within 15 ft. of their home. Scary! She called avidchamp this morning and I'm happy to report he's fine. It was 2 miles from him, but that's 2 miles too close! I was worried for him because that Goldsby fire was still smoldering last nite.

Paula

I live in OKC, but left yesterday, driving to my grandkids. I am appalled at all the destruction right now.

Floods, earthquake, tsunami and now fire.... Where will it end?

Moni

I live in Midwest City and I am ok. The fires were very far from me, but breathing in all the smoke made breathing a little difficult yesterday, so not much got done in the garden.

Hopefully we hear from everyone and they are ok.

Fires were just north of us...saved by the south winds.

We're fine. The neighborhood was smoky and hazy for a few hours but I never personally saw flames.

Our house is fine. The closest fire was several miles away. The Goldsby fires did get in the way of our usual commuting route to Norman for work, however, so we did have to take the long way home. Minor inconvenience compared to what many others had to deal with.

We do know a few people who were evacuated from their homes in the Crystal Lakes area, but as far as I know nobody lost anything.

In south Tulsa - no fires in the city that I was aware of, but several surrounding communities did. My son played a baseball game Friday night in Bixby and it was *very* hazy and smokey (enough so that I brought my inhaler just in case.) Apparently fires south of Bixby in the Liberty Mounds area... and then just north of where we were (at Bixby High School) there was a large barn that went up. In light of the preidictions that it was going to be such a high fire danger day, I'm pretty irritated and disgusted that some of these fires were supposedly started by people trying to do controlled burns. Ridiculous.

~Laura

Thank goodness we have had an adequate amount of rain here in NE OK as our neighbors to the north decided to burn their pasture yesterday. The wind blew to our pasture by 9 pm and we were up until 2 am moving hay, watching animals and generally keeping it out of the yard. Good thing the wind was blowing a little to the west or we would have had big problems.

Fire sure is scary and my thoughts are with everyone affected by it.

Brandy

It's sad to see (on the news) so many homes burned completely to the ground in Harrah and Choctaw, nothing left standing but brick. Some of the homes that burned in Choctaw were only a few blocks from the area that was devastated by fire two years ago, when over fifty homes burned. We left Saturday morning for Lake Eufaula and as we drove east on I-40 saw at least four fires still burning, two south of I-40 near Weleetka and another two north of I-40 closer to the lake. There was smoke in the air over the entire area all day Saturday. It did make for some interesting looking skies. At times the skies looked almost stormy due to the smoke and haze. Coming back today there was still a lot of haze in the air near Weleetka, even though there was a light drizzle.

Suzie

Brandy, I wouldn't have been very happy with those neighbors.

Here in our county many ranchers use prescribed burning as a management tool but, while many are careful to burn only under the right conditions, some others are not.

Many, many of the wildfires (I'd say most of them) in our county are from so-called controlled burns that become uncontrollable. It is extremely frustrating.

It is one thing if someone burning under expected "good conditions" and with a plowed firebreak, etc., has the weather unexpectedly change on them and their fire escapes from their control. It is a whole different thing when people show total disregard for the conditions and for the danger they're exposing other peoples' property to and just go out and burn off a pasture just because they decide to do it "today" no matter the weather.

Also, everyone, FYI---very high to extreme fire weather conditions will return later in the week. Rainfall at this time does not do much to reduce fire danger because cured, dormant vegetation doesn't absorb that moisture and hold it so the vegetation dries out quickly after the rain stops.

Dawn, I wasn't very happy at all. We finished a new greenhouse (hoop house, actually) and I was really worried about the embers burning holes in it. The neighbors are pretty new to farming and we nicely told them that we may have burned, but not on a day with wind and not when it is this dry. They felt bad and hopefully learned from it.

I know we're all praying for rain, but for some, it can't come soon enough.

Brandy,

At least they responded well to what you said to them.

I'm glad your hoop house didn't burn. Mine is still under construction but soon-to-be finished and I was thinking last Friday that I would be really mad if it burnt in a wildfire before we even finished building it.

My fire chief DH told me there was a set of "guidelines" for prescribed burning so I Googled and found them and linked them below. Maybe your relatively new farmer neighbor would like to have a copy of them so they can be sure they prepare a little better next time?

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Prescribed Burn Law and Guide