Rain brings some relief to Oklahoma City firefighters, but not for long

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The current rain and cooler temperatures have been useful for space firefighters battling a number of grassfires scorching the Oklahoma City metro. While this climate has been helpful, the Fire Department mentioned nobody can be too cautious. It has been a really busy July for the Oklahoma City Fire Department. So far this month there’s been 320 grassfires. 

The Oklahoma City Fire Department advised News 4 regardless that the metro has seen some rain the previous few days, it’s not sufficient.  

“If it’s not an all-time record for the number of grass fires for the month, it’s got to be up there. This rain that we’re seeing this weekend is certainly a welcomed sight, and our firefighters are really going to appreciate that, at least in the short term,” mentioned Benny Fulkerson, public information officer district chief at Oklahoma City Fire Department.  

The current excessive warmth, paired with heavy gear – weighing 65 kilos or extra — has made it troublesome to combat the flames.  

“What firefighters do is inherently a hot and dangerous job anyway. And when you couple that with wearing roughly 65 pounds of heavy gear, that actually holds heat in, it becomes even more of a problem for them when they’re out working in those conditions, when it’s very hard on those 105-degree days with the sun just bearing down on them,” mentioned Fulkerson.  

While the climate has actually supplied relief to hearth fighters, after Sunday the rain will dry up once more, which is able to present extra challenges for the encircling hearth departments. 

“If that 100-degree weather returns and those hot, dry days return, the vegetation that’s above the ground level can then dry out and it’ll be able to burn again. But then it’s muddy underneath, and that that presents a whole new challenge for our firefighters,” mentioned Fulkerson. 

The muddy situations could make it troublesome for firefighters to work. Even with the rain, it will probably nonetheless burn simply superb above the bottom stage. 

“Just because we’ve received a few days of rain, three or four days of rain, that’s helpful, but that doesn’t mean that we’re out of the woods as it pertains to grassfires, because this isn’t going to bring everything back up that has become so brown. It’ll help a little bit,” mentioned Fulkerson.  

July and August are sometimes very popular and dry months and we do see a number of grassfires throughout that point. So, hearth crews need to remind individuals to proceed being cautious. Just one spark can flip into a giant downside.