Storm chaser Mike Scantlin reported live from Mannford, Oklahoma, on the evening of March 14, as multiple dangerous fires burned throughout the state.
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00:00Multiple fires have already broken out across several states including Texas and Oklahoma and for a closer look at the dangerous situation
00:07We're joined now by storm chaser Mike Scanlon
00:10He's been covering this fire west of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and he joins us right now from Manford, which is just outside of Tulsa
00:20Yeah, that's right Damien, you know this area pretty well
00:23No, unfortunately this area was ravaged by wildfires in 2012
00:27And I believe they had another round of wildfires here near or in town in the early 2000
00:32So the way that this area is sandwiched in the woods up against Keystone Lake
00:36They're just an unfortunate position for when we get these really strong dry
00:40low humidity wind events around the southwest early spring systems, but
00:45Earlier I was back here in this neighborhood. This video is incredible because
00:49back here in this neighborhood
00:51As the fire approached town, there are multiple structures on fire here now further west
00:58probably ten or so
00:59Homes or businesses burned to the ground hours ago as the fire crossed Oklahoma 48 south of town
01:05And now the fire is in town, you know the last live shot
01:08I wasn't really sure where the fire was but you know, the smoke tells you that it's pretty close to town or it's in town
01:12Well, you know
01:13I went back in this neighborhood whenever everybody was getting out of town and the fire is is absolutely in the neighborhoods on the south
01:20On Greenbrier Avenue here, so
01:23multiple fire crews back here
01:25I got out of there when I saw the Oklahoma Highway Patrol going door-to-door making sure everyone's out of here right before that
01:30I came up on the nursing home
01:39Just it was chaos I pulled in and made sure that everyone got out of there
01:42They had loaded up a bus and gotten everyone out
01:45So they were they had all the people out and they were just grabbing stuff
01:48So they didn't need any help with that
01:49But that was kind of a harrowing situation thinking that we have a nursing home
01:52in the path of this thing and pretty much all the businesses along 51 have evacuated and
01:57You know the neighborhoods on the south side of 51
02:10The neighborhood and now it's just
02:13Watching it wait and wait and to see where it ends up and you know, it's really close
02:18You can see the smoke starting to get darker here
02:21Strong southerly is the southwest at least probably 45 to 50 at this point. No stronger gusts
02:27Mike has there been a time where the wind has subsided at all or is it just been blowing all day?
02:35You know, it hasn't been
02:37Sustained as as much as it was earlier and that first branch came through
02:42It's been kind of hit or miss but whenever it's gusting it's like a sustained gust
02:45It'll be probably five minutes of intense winds and then a couple minutes
02:48It'll die down and then you'll get another blast coming through
02:51But I also just kind of wanted to pull up the infrared satellite just to show you how many fires we have
02:57across northeast, Oklahoma
02:58So big fire about 30 miles west of here in Stillwater west of Stillwater
03:03That's where Oklahoma State University is and then further south down towards
03:07Perkins and Carney areas also a big fire down there and then about 10 miles north of here
03:11There's another fire crossing the same Highway 48 here south of Cleveland. So, you know, there's just too many fires not enough
03:18Crews to really keep them under control. So and it's gonna be like this all night
03:22We're gonna have this problem tonight overnight and into tomorrow as these winds just will not die down
03:27Very low humidity extreme fire weather ongoing here in Manfred, Oklahoma
03:33All right storm tracker Mike Scanlon joining us right now from Manfred, Oklahoma Mike. Thank you so much for that update and stay safe out there
03:41And David you said you've been to that community. You're familiar with the area here and well
03:46Just a horrible situation there with home after home burned and destroyed today. Yeah, and he was talking about multiple
03:52Fires going ongoing there across parts of Oklahoma one of the cities that he mentioned was Stillwater
03:57Which is one of the largest cities there in Oklahoma, obviously Tulsa is the second largest city behind the state capital of Oklahoma City
04:04But yeah, this is gonna be an ongoing devastating
04:06Event here as we head throughout this afternoon and this evening, but also as we head into tonight tracking the risk of severe weather