After midday dryline passage, a fire began a couple miles to the south-southwest, its embers blowing into a swath of dry, tall grass from the previous growing season. Fires in the southern Great Plains can race out to tens or hundreds of thousands of acres within just a few hours under such dry and windy circumstances, in a severe drought, with crispy fine fuels. Fortunately, two factors saved this situation from getting out of hand disastrously:
1. Much of area land had been mowed for hay or tilled, which is bad for controlling dust, but discourages fast burn. This hemmed in a couple of the fire’s perimeters.
2. Local response was swift and decisive, this being the first of several pumper trucks to arrive within minutes, spraying things down. They’re used to this, and well-trained.
This would become one of my most unusual chase days: waking up in Shamrock after observing a supercell in the dense Panhandle dust the day before, lunch buffet in Altus, this early-afternoon wildfire just behind the dryline, rock collecting in the Slick Hills, arriving in the target area near Anadarko early enough to do some fishing at a nearby reservoir, intercepting a nearby, gnarly HP supercell twice, then finally, more supercells in the evening just a few miles from home.
6 SW Roosevelt OK (23 Apr 22) Looking ESE
34.7823, -99.0888