Some large wildfire activity in Texas and Oklahoma (Jan 25th - Feb 1st)

After writing about last weeks critical fire weather in Oklahoma on January 29th and the extreme drought in the southern Great Plains on January 31st, I want to spend a little time today writing about wildfire activity in the Oklahoma and Texas areas of the Southern Great Plains.  I will first write about some of the sources that I used before getting to the meat of this article, larger wildfires in the Oklahoma and Texas areas of the Southern Great Plains. The information presented here represents a work in progress, I hope to have more to follow as information becomes available.

There are a couple of sources that I went to in preparing this article. First is the Southern Area Coordination Center (SACC)   I look at three products, two of the products are the Morning Report  and the Detailed Situation Report from the Southern Area Coordination’s Center Predictive Services Page, click on Southern Area Products. These reports are updated daily during fire season, you are likely to see different reports from those that I reference in this article (reports dated February 2, 2018). The third SACC product that I used is their Southern Area Incident Map (updated daily by 9AM during the week. found under Southern Area Products). The map in combination with the information in the daily Morning Reports and the Detailed Situation Report are very helpful to me because it allows me easily locate a specific fire. Unfortunately, I can not link to any of these products for you. I mention them because I used them in preparing this article and I thought that you might find these products useful.

I also like to look at State Agencies Wildfire Data. Starting with Texas, I went to the Texas A & M Forestry Services Wildland Fire Division. You will afind the Texas A & M Current Wildfire Situation page useful with  a link to a nice interactive map of current wildfires in TX  (not the listing  of wildfires on the right side of the map wildfires. The Oklahoma Forestry Services has a nice fire news blog with daily entries summarizing wildfire activity that may be found here.

A note, when looking at data from the Oklahoma and Texas State Fire Agencies, I found that there some wildfires that I found on the SACC reports (e.g. the Windmill Fire below) that do not seem to be listed in the data from the State Agencies. Perhaps one explanation is what agency (State or Federal) is taking the lead of fighting the wildfire. I believe but am not certain that the Windmill Fire is a Bureau of Indian Affairs Fire.

I wanted to be able show you a map of some of the recent wildfires in the Oklahoma and Texas areas of the Southern Great Plains to give you an idea of wildfires that have burned over the last several days. So I went to the USFS Active Fire Mapping Program. You will see the map of Current Large Incidents when you access this page. If you go to Fire Data in Google Earth, you can download the current Large Incidents kmz file for Google Earth. I created the following map of large incidents for you. You will note that I have included fires in southern and central Texas as well as fires for Oklahoma. Recall that January 30th and 31st were critical fire weather days in portions of Oklahoma, Texas and adjoining areas. This map does not include the numerous smaller wildfires that have burned in the last several days in both States that are mostly contained.

Take a moment to look at the map. I am listing basic information on each wildfire for you (date started, acreage burned, and containment. Any errors in the listing below are mine. The information is taken from the SACC reports cited above and is current as of February 2, 2018.

Oklahoma

• Windmill: date first reported - January 30th; 3,380 acres; 65% containment
• East Side 2: date first reported - January 25th, 757 acres, 50% containment (February 1st)
• Duncan Hollow: date first reported - January31st, 288 acres, 100% containment
• 2073 Command: date first reported - January 30th, 320 acres, 90% containment
• Rogue Dozer: date first reported - January 30th, 425 acres, 95% containment
• Meachum: date first reported - unknown, 348 acres, containment unknown
• Barick: date first reported - Unknown, 637 acres, containment unknown
• Stidham Creek: date first reported - January 31st, 627 acres, 60% containment
• East 8 Mile: date first reported - January 31st, 100 acres, 20% containment

Texas

• 62 (Motley County): date first reported - January 25th; 5,042 acres; 95% containment
• Turkey Creek: date first reported - unknown, 313 acres, containment unknown
• Ledgerock: date first reported - January 30th, 500 acres, 100% containment
• Split Trough 2: date first reported - January 31st; 1,000 acres, 95% containment
• Nursery Road: date first reported - January 29th, 800 acres, 95% containment