Around 600 acres were burned near Alma in Wabaunsee County. But Oklahoma could not send its resources across the state line for liability reasons, Geissler said. Four fires have now merged into what’s being called the 350 Complex fire. “It was just a crappy day to try to fight fire in any aspect of it”. The Oklahoma Forest Service has dispatched two CL-415 Super Scoopers aircraft and an Incident Management Team to help battle the blaze.
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“Businesses and residents in the area from County Road North South 207 and Highway 50 and from East West County Road 21 and East West County Road 32 should evacuate to the west”, the Woodward County Emergency Management said in the alert.
The town of Freedom is about five miles southwest of the spot where a previous fire started in March, then spread from Oklahoma into Kansas, scorching an estimated 574 square miles of rural land in the two states. Crews plan to survey the fire by air Wednesday morning to assess its size.
Tuesday’s fire threatened homes and an iodine-manufacturing plant, Lehenbauer said.
But Lehenbauer says Wednesday’s windy forecast will make it hard for firefighters to control the blaze, which has burned about 40 square miles of rural land.
The National Weather Service in Kansas and Oklahoma said gusty winds, low humidity and generally dry conditions will increase the chances for more wildfires Wednesday.
The authorities in northwestern Oklahoma said the wildfire has spread rapidly and hence the residents of town of Freedom are encouraged to evacuate.
Evacuations have begun in Kansas responding to wildfires and monitoring done by state Emergency Operations Center in Topeka.
The fire stalled late Tuesday at the Cimarron River west of Freedom, but Woodward County Emergency Management Director Matt Lehenbauer said early Wednesday that winds shifted overnight, diminishing the threat to the town. 100 to 150 residents were evacuated from a mobile home park and brought to a shelter in Cico Park in Manhattan.
A large grassfire destroyed one home and seven to eight outbuildings in the community of Wilburton in Morton County.
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In Canadian County, crews are battling a grassfire near Southwest 104th Street and Cemetery Road.
