Dawn it has been a long week in Dewey County. Judy was blessed. She lost 320 acres of grass and 4 1/2 miles of fence but no cattle. Her and her daughter moved the cows to bare cotton fields Friday but they got it stopped a few miles before it got there. I saw some miracles while I was there last weekend and then many gut wrenching sites that just stops you in your tracks. The total acreage for the Rhea fire was 262,000 this morning and saw a few minutes ago a report that it might of grew over 30,000 acres today. Also saw the first estimate of cattle loss from the OCA and they said over 30,000 hd and they expect that to go higher in the coming days. Many lost all of their pastures. Were many close calls but only know of one life lost. Her brother was on a grader near Vici and the wind changed and he said after he got home it scared him when he thought about it. He was trapped but managed to get out. You hear of stories of men in their 80's losing their whole cowherd. You see dead livestock and wildlife. I've seen the results of smaller fires but nothing the magnitude of the Rhea fire. One of the problems were there were so many fires scattered over a wide area. They evacuated two towns within 35 miles of Elkhart, KS last evening. Many fires in SW KS, the OK and TX Panhandles and NW and W Central OK.

Going down Friday evening when I turned east 22 miles west of her house I could see the eery red glow in the night sky. As I got closer I could see the fire at the base. Gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. You can only imagine the damage as I could tell it was very intense. Saturday morning when we made our rounds and inspected the damage my fears were confirmed.

Hopefully the rain will come starting Friday night and this fire season will be over for a while. Rain now is the only answer to decreasing the fire threat. And we are desperate over a lage area.

I pray any members of this forum who might of been in the fires way are ok. I had meant to check in sooner but have been busy.

Jay, Thank God you finally posted!!!! I have been so worried about Judy, her family and their cattle over there in the Leedey area. I knew you'd come here to fill us in whenever you were able. I am sorry she lost so much fencing---I know how hard (and expensive) it is to have to replace so much fencing, and to have to do it in a hurry too. I am grateful they were able to move the cows and save them. I honestly cannot look at one more photograph of deceased cattle and wildlife....it just shatters my heart into a million pieces....but I do think it is important to post these photos too so the locals can show the rest of us just what is happening out there.

Last night I saw numbers that back up and exceed the 30,000 acre fire growth you mentioned---they were saying it grew around 35,000 acres, and most of that in the 3-5 hour period when fire weather conditions were at their worst---truly the historic levels they warned us about. I expect that today's Fire Situation Report, when it comes out, will show the Rhea fire near 285,000 acres now or possibly higher. I wasn't watching the fire news on Wednesday so don't know if it grew even more. (I was out in the garden....)

I thought the loss of the man's life who was running the road grader was so tragic. I wish the county commissioners for each county would buy fire bunker gear for their equipment operators to wear when they are working the fire line----we don't send our firefighters out to fight without proper protective equipment and clothing and we shouldn't ask the heavy equipment operators to work in burning areas without it either. The cost of firefighting type PPE for equipment operators might seem like an unnecessary expense since those guys wouldn't wear it often, but they still need it when they need it....I don't know if it wouldn't have saved that gentleman's life, but it might have. The wind and the extraordinary dry conditions are causing fire movement at rates that are hard to grasp, even for experienced wildland firefighters. Our county's strike team members all say the same thing when they come back from working in western OK---the fires out there are a fast-moving beast, the likes of which we almost never experience here. On our worst fire days here, our wind gusts usually are only in the 40s. Wind gusts in the 50s and 60s are just beyond what we experience down here, and we are rarely as dry as y'all are.

I am glad you had time to check in, and I totally understand about seeing that orange glow and the sick feeling it gives a person in the pit of their stomach. I hate the orange glow and I hate that feeling too.

Down here, we got over 8" of rain in February and I feel like that rain saved us from exactly what western OK (and adjacent parts of all the other states like KS, CO and NM) are experiencing right now. We still had some wildfires after that, but haven't had too many of them in the last month. I wish y'all could get some rain like that---of course, it was too much rain at once for our clay soils and it aggravated me by making it impossible to plant onions and potatoes on time, but at the same time, we desperately needed it then just as y'all desperately need that sort of rain now.

One fire caught my ear yesterday. It was up near the Carter-Love county line and didn't involve our VFD, but I kept hearing the Incident Commander instructing arriving units to proceed past his location to go to the next driveway, make entry to that property and get behind "the greenhouses" to stop the fire before it reached the greenhouses. All I was thinking to myself was that I was so glad they were going to be able to arrive on time to save those greenhouses from the approaching grass fire (which they did). We didn't have much wind at that time, which is good, because that fire remained only a somewhat fast-moving grass fire, and did not turn into a raging wildfire.

I know it is devastating to the ranchers to lose their herds, especially those guys (and you know what I mean about this) who have worked on their cattle breeding for decades to develop their breeding lines. We aren't talking about losing cattle they bought at the sale barn a year or too ago----we are talking about losing years and years of genetics. It must be gut-wrenching in a way that I cannot even grasp.

Please let Judy know that I was thinking about y'all and praying for the safety of her place, you two, the kids, the grandkids and the cattle. I know that all the physical things can be replaced, but lives cannot. I'll keep praying for the safety of all and for rain.

Dawn