Hundreds flee wind-whipped wildfires in Oklahoma, Kansas
Wildfires spread rapidly by howling winds continued to burn Wednesday across Oklahoma and Kansas, destroying homes and forcing hundreds of people to flee.
Four of the fires have now merged into one large fire, called the 350 Complex Fire, according to the Oklahoma Forestry Services.
That fire has now burned 55,308 acres as of midday Wednesday, said Hannah Anderson, a spokeswoman for Oklahoma Forestry Services. It was started by power lines that were whipped around and arced by winds that were sustained at 30 mph and gusted to over 50 mph.
The fire was 0% contained as of Thursday. An unknown number of structures were lost, but no injuries or deaths have been reported at this time.
There are currently 115 firefighters and multiple aircraft working the fire with more resources being dispatched.
Authorities urged the 300 residents of Freedom, about 170 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, to evacuate their homes on Tuesday, Woods County Emergency Management Director Steve Foster told the Associated Press.
The Oklahoma blazes destroyed several homes.
Crews were fighting at least three wildfires in northern Kansas on Wednesday, where forecasters warned of dangerous fire conditions. About 150 people were forced to flee the region late Tuesday.
Gusty winds were forecast to continue fanning the wildfires in the central and southern Plains on Wednesday, mainly in Kansas and Oklahoma, according to the National Weather Service. Low humidity and high temperatures could also fuel the blazes, Anderson said.
It's been a rough fire season in the Plains. The Anderson Creek Fire, which flared up in late March and spans Oklahoma and Kansas, has burned 367,740 acres and is now 95% contained.
It's the largest blaze in the U.S. so far this year, charring an area about twice the size of the five boroughs of New York City.
Overall, more than 750,000 acres have burned this year as of Friday, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise reported. That's the largest tally for the first three months of the year since 2006 and far above the average of 450,687 acres.