Ashes Falling

Saturday was a beautiful day 70 degrees outside, people out and about getting things done they do not want to do when its 10 degrees outside. With the amazing weather my roommates and I decided to grill out. I hopped in my car and headed to the new Wal-Mart as I pull out on to Western all the fields just looked so hazy the sky was a very funky color. At that time I just ignored what was going on until I got closer to Wal-Mart and there was a HUGE cloud of smoke behind it. I quickly called my boyfriend explaining what I was seeing. The color of the sky and just all the smoke that was coming from that area I knew it was bad.

            I was glad that I finally was able to find out happened on Saturday in the news paper Sunday morning. Nearly 2,000 acres were nearly burned down. We are so lucky with the wonderful landscape that Oklahoma has and it is sad to see a small mistake led to all that land being burnt. The thing that got me really thinking was when we were finally grilling out; ashes were falling from the sky. It gave me a very creep feeling like how people in New York felt when they had ashes falling on them from the World trade Centers; my experience was not really close to that. But what if that fire got closer to Stillwater would our students really know what to do?

When you start to see ashes falling from the sky you start to look up to the sky and see what the heck is going on. Saturday January 29, there was about 1,500-2,000 acres burnt of Oklahoma’s land due to a hotdog cook out. No one was reported hurt during the blaze, but a few homes and structures were burnt down. There was reported to be about eighteen different fire stations battling the fire and also Red Cross volunteers were there to give aid to the fire fighters.



Smoke billows from a grass fire in northeastern Logan County.

Area ranchers were on stand by to protect cattle as the blaze

 destroyed more than 1,5000 acres Saturday. Law enforcement

 closed State Highway 105 for more than six hours because of the fire.

 Andrew Adams



            It would have been crazy to be there the moment it started to try to stomp out that little ember, to stop it from going crazy and burning down nearly 2,000 acres of land. It makes me wonder if the surrounding people of Stillwater know what to do when this kind of problem arouses. We always see Smoky the Bear saying “don’t play with fire,” but and going through safety tips what do we need an adult Smoky? It is very sad to me to see a man had to battle the blaze with just his water hose to protect his home, but that was just not good enough to save his motor home and a couple of his trucks.

             The man that started the fire has no charges against him yet, because there was no burn ban going on at the time. Branch in his article says that currently we need a state wide burn ban and the snow on Monday will not do much. Yes that may be true but for a large mistake of one man I do not think that currently we need to have a state wide burn ban, but more of an education of fire prevention for people. I am curious to see if the man who started the fire will have a civil action case to deal with. I am very glad that the fire did not reach Stillwater but I grieve for those whose land got burnt.