Last Updated on February 23, 2022, 2:42 PM | Published: February 23, 2022
OKLAHOMA CITY (Free Press) — What started as a simple grass fire Tuesday eventually caused the destruction of ten employee vehicles at a nearby Chick-fil-A location and several employees being taken to the hospital.
Earlier Tuesday, Oklahoma County Commissioners extended the county burn ban to another 14 days. With extremely dry conditions for the last several months, fire departments in the OKC metro have responded to thousands of grass fires.
According to Captain Scott Douglas with the Oklahoma City Fire Department, the original call was for a grass fire along the westbound lanes on the north side of the roadway between MacArthur and Rockwell. But, with dry conditions and a strong south wind the situation quickly became more intense.
As the fire grew along the I-40 right-of-way and started encroaching on the Chick-fil-A property along the fence line, evergreen shrubs at the edge of the parking lot caught fire and grew.
On their way, fire crews were informed that at least three vehicles in parking spots next to the shrubs had caught fire.
“Firefighters arrived on scene to find several vehicles on fire with thick black smoke obscuring the Chick-fil-A restaurant,” said Douglas. “A commercial fire alarm response was requested from first arriving fire crews.”
Employees of the Chick-fil-A and others were escorted by firefighters to a nearby store for evaluation while other crews worked to extinguish the fire.
Thirteen employees were evaluated for possible smoke inhalation. Three were transported to local hospitals for further treatment.
Other crews extinguished the fire that had spread to ten employee vehicles. Total damage to the vehicles is estimated to be $200,000.
Even though the restaurant closed temporarily, when Free Press went to the location later the store was back in operation.
Douglas reported that a service truck had caught fire as they were traveling along the stretch of I-40 and the sparks had touched off the fire according to a call they received from the driver. They turned over that information to the Oklahoma City Police Department.
Social media sites were also ablaze as the cars went up in flames since thousands of people travel past the location every hour and the air was clear for helicopters and drones:
Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.
