By John Estus
The Oklahoman
Copyright 2007 The Oklahoman, All Rights Reserved
OKLAHOMA CITY — A newspaper carrier helped a family escape unharmed from a fire at their northwest Oklahoma City home early Tuesday.
It was one of many fires across the state that day.
Tony Churchwell, a contract carrier for The Oklahoman, was driving to pick up his daily batch of newspapers about 1:15 a.m. and spotted smoke rising from a neighborhood off NW 122, west of MacArthur Boulevard. He said he found a burning home with flames blowing toward another.
“There was no fire truck or anybody out there, so I figured somebody had to be asleep in there,” Churchwell said.
He banged on both homes’ doors and screamed warnings.
Laura McMahan, 43, her husband, Greg, 44, their son, Gavin, 18, and their greyhound dog, Fancy, escaped their home at 6308 Winfield Drive unharmed, as did two people next door.
Damage estimates are more than $250,000 to each home.
The McMahans saved their future daughter-in-law’s wedding dress, which they were storing until a May wedding.
“She had just brought the wedding dress over on Sunday because she didn’t want it in her dad’s home because he smokes, and she didn’t want it in her apartment because they get fires and broken into sometimes,” Laura McMahan said.
State battles fires
City crews busy: Oklahoma City firefighters had more than just those fires to deal with Tuesday, as they battled about 10 wildfires, including six that began within a 20-minute period starting during the midafternoon, said Linda Rains, Oklahoma City fire department spokeswoman. It wasn’t immediately known how many acres burned, if any structures burned or if anyone was hurt.
Car engine sparks flames: A 100-acre fire in western Lincoln County was sparked by a car engine that caught fire, said Joey Wakefield, the county’s emergency management director. Wakefield said volunteers from seven rural departments extinguished the blaze near U.S. Highway 62 and State Highway 102. Freddie Judge, who lives about a quarter-mile from the intersection, lost several antique cars in the fire, Wakefield said, but no homes were damaged in the blaze. Wakefield said the car that started the fire was being test driven by a mechanic, who parked on the roadside when the engine began to smoke. The fire spread onto dry grasses nearby, he said.
900 acres burn in Bryan County: Wildfire-stricken areas continued to smolder Tuesday afternoon in central Bryan County from a blaze that began Sunday. A controlled burn that started Sunday burned overnight and threatened a home and grasslands Monday. Workers from six nearby fire departments and three crews from the Bureau of Indian Affairs battled the blaze, which consumed about 900 acres. Fire crews used bulldozers to create fire lines. They also used aircraft from the Bryan County Sheriff’s Department to spot the blaze once it jumped into a wooded area, said James Dalton, emergency management director for Bryan County in Durant. Dalton said about 80 people worked to get the fire under control.
Wildfire rages near Freedom: Firefighters from at least seven agencies fought a wildfire that broke out Tuesday afternoon northeast of Freedom in Woods County. About 4 p.m., the fire was reported to be about half a mile wide and spreading across the Kansas border, said Bryan Miller, an Alva firefighter. The flames had burned across an eight-mile swath, charring as much as 10,000 acres of grassland, he said. No injuries were reported or structures lost in the sparsely populated area, Miller said.