By The Epoch Times | Created at 2025-03-15 22:43:58 | Updated at 2025-03-17 08:01:50
1 day ago
The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch through Tuesday. A dangerous storm system fanned 130 fires in 44 Oklahoma counties.
STILLWATER, Okla.—A massive storm system swept the Southeast with high winds that combined with low humidity to spark more than 130 wildfires in 44 Oklahoma counties.
Nearly 300 homes were damaged or destroyed statewide, including houses in the college town of Stillwater about 65 miles north of Oklahoma City.
Downed power lines may have started some of the fires that scorched Oklahoma.
Jenny Nelson and her son Chris surveyed the burned wreckage of her home of 15 years. She had seen the smoke from the approaching fires Friday night. When her grown children called, she gathered a few things and evacuated with her neighbors from the Pecan Lake Court cul-de-sac.
She said all she could feel when she saw her destroyed home was sadness. Chris agreed.
“Loss, loss of memories, generations of memories in this house,” he told The Epoch Times.
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Across the street, Ken Hudgeons watched his neighbors picking up the debris that had been their homes.
He said the fact that his house is still standing is deceptive. Many of his windows were shattered from the heat of the fire. Sparks and embers had migrated into the attic, and the smoke permeated the interior, making the two-story brick home uninhabitable.
“I’m not sure how we'll mitigate this whole thing, but the situation is that my wife’s not going to move in here if it smells,” Hudgeons told The Epoch Times.
Hudgeons said he has family and friends who have already reached out to help. He said that, in the end, he felt blessed that he and his neighbors made it through the inferno alive.
“So we’re going to make sure that everything is like it was before ... that’s why you have insurance. And we'll play the insurance game, I guess,” Hudgeons said.
Next door, Jay Caffey sat next to his swimming pool with his dog Charlotte. The house Caffey shared with his children has been reduced to ashes and fire-warped appliances. A burned-out car sat in the driveway as Caffey waited for his in-laws to arrive. Like many in his neighborhood who lost most of their worldly possessions, Caffey says things could have been worse.
He said that after 30 years in Stillwater, he has a support network and a vacant apartment on the second floor of his business.
“We’ve got so many friends, we’ve got so many family members. We have a place to go,” Caffey told The Epoch Times.
Jay Caffey (R), his mother-in-law Beth, his dog Charlotte, and his friend Max stand in front of his burned out house in Stillwater, Okla., on March 15, 2025. Michael Clements/The Epoch Times
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said at a Saturday news conference that some 266 square miles have burned so far in his state.
Earlier in the day, Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a warning to anyone who tries to profit from the disaster.
Drummond stated that the Emergency Price Stabilization Act was triggered by Stitt’s emergency declaration for 12 counties.
The law, known as the price gouging statute, prohibits an increase of more than 10 percent in the price of goods and services. The affected counties are Cleveland, Creek, Dewey, Grady, Lincoln, Logan, Oklahoma, Pawnee, Payne, Pottawatomie, Roger Mills, and Stephens.
“Oklahoma consumers reeling from the wildfires can be assured they will be protected from unfair price hikes and fraud,” Drummond stated.
On Saturday afternoon, more than 10,000 people in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi were without power. This is down from the 77,000 reported without power in Oklahoma alone on Friday night.
Beginning Friday morning, wildfires threatened to spread rapidly amid warm, dry weather and strong winds. Evacuations were ordered in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
A blaze in Roberts County, Texas, northeast of Amarillo, quickly blew up from less than a square mile to an estimated 32.8 square miles, the Texas A&M University Forest Service said on social media platform X. Crews stopped its advance by the evening.
Ken Hudgeons stands in front of his house after wildfires ravaged his neighborhood in Stillwater, Okla., on March 15, 2025. Michael Clements/The Epoch Times
About 60 miles to the south, another fire grew to about 3.9 square miles before its advance was halted in the afternoon.
The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management activated its emergency operations center after several fast-moving fires prompted evacuations of the town of Leedey in the western part of the state and a rural area east of Norman.
James said firefighters had been prepositioned in certain areas, which helps authorities respond to blazes early. Firefighting aircraft were also deployed in some parts of Oklahoma and Texas but were generally unable to fly due to low visibility from smoke and dust.
Friday evening, the National Weather Service said a “complex of extremely dangerous fires” was located northeast of Oklahoma City, near Stillwater. It urged some people in the city of about 50,000 to evacuate. Officials issued mandatory evacuation orders via social media that included homes, hotels and a Walmart.
Jennifer Thompson, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman, described the fire conditions in the central and northern parts of the state as historic and highly anomalous.
Much of northwest Oklahoma remained under a Red Flag fire warning on Saturday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
