Wind-Fueled Fires Threaten Oklahoma City By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer
CARBON, Texas - Weary firefighters worked through the night attempting to contain three major fires, including one 25-mile-long blaze that charred farm fields, barns and some homes in Eastland County. Grass fires elsewhere in the drought-stricken region had apparently destroyed a couple of tiny Texas towns. Other fires had destroyed homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate in Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Officials warned that the dry, gusty conditions and extreme fire danger would continue.
"We don't know where we will be today," Oklahoma City Fire Department Maj. Brian Stanaland said Monday morning. "At this point, we consider the whole city a target for grass fires."
Helicopters and airplanes were lined up to join the battle Monday against the lengthy, 22,400-acre blaze near Carbon and Gorman in Eastland County, about 125 miles west of Dallas, said Texas Forest Service spokeswoman Traci Weaver.
Firefighters were close to encircling the fire early Monday, but were concerned that a fore shift in wind would complicate efforts, Weaver said.
Crews flying over other sections of northern and western Texas to assess the damage Sunday reported the tiny communities of Ringgold and Kokomo, together home to about 125 people, had essentially been wiped out by flames, Weaver said.
Crews planned to conduct a house-to-house search Monday for casualties in the two towns, as well as in Cross Plains, about 25 miles west of Carbon, where more than 90 homes and a church were destroyed by flames last week. In all, four deaths were reported last week in Texas and Oklahoma.
In Carbon, Bill Sandlin and his wife packed up their clothes, pictures and his gun collection, then drove off just as flames started to engulf their house and three barns.
"We hate losing our stuff, but at least everybody's OK," Sandlin said.
About 20 homes were burned out in the 13-mile stretch from Ringgold to Nocona, Montague County Judge James Kittrell said Monday. Six homes were destroyed near Mineral Wells, Weaver said.
Dozens of fires blackened the Oklahoma landscape as wind gusted to 50 mph, including 25 blazes within Oklahoma City that forced the evacuations of two neighborhoods. Four homes were destroyed, Stanaland said Monday.
Altogether, dozens of wildfires swept across more than 5,000 acres of Oklahoma and destroyed at least a dozen homes on Sunday, said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Emergency Management.
Just across the Texas state line in New Mexico, 170 elderly residents were moved out of two nursing homes in Hobbs on Sunday, and a casino and community college in the town of 29,000 were evacuated.
On Monday, crews were mopping up after the four fires that blackened more than 65,000 acres of grassland and burned more than a dozen houses and barns in the Hobbs area.
"It's real calm; nice and cool," Dan Ware, New Mexico state Forestry Division spokesman, said Monday morning. "Basically, all the fires laid down and just kind of went to bed."
Most of the evacuated nursing home residents had been sent back to their quarters Monday, but 60 residents of one of nursing home and 50 to 75 other residents of the Hobbs area were still evacuees, said Ernie Wheeler, Hobbs emergency operations center director.
Ware had cautioned that the calmer overnight conditions wouldn't mean the area was out of the woods.
"As soon as the temperature comes up tomorrow (Monday), as soon as the wind comes up — bam, we're off to the races again," Ware said Sunday.
___
Associated Press writer Ashley Gibson in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
01-02-2006, 13:28
Wind-Fueled Fires Threaten Oklahoma City 
AP Photo: An oil well pump is silhouetted against a grass fire in Guthhrie, Okla., Sunday, Jan....
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