In a matter of seconds, two Journalists saved a road grade operator on Tuesday before he nearly burned in the massive wildfire still raging in Woodward County.
Video content surfaced earlier this week by the two KWTV News 9 journalists who were watching the scene unfold from inside their car. The video shows the fire creeping closer to the road grader that is stuck in a ditch. The operator rolls the grader back and forth, desperately trying to free the vehicle as the voices of the two journalists urge the man to get out.
The video shows the journalists pull their car forward just as the operator leaps from the grader–which gets engulfed in flames–and sprints inside the car.
“My ears just about burned on that one,” One of the journalists, Val Castor, said. The video shows the car peeling away from the fire just in the nick of time.
According to the Oklahoma Forestry Services, as of Thursday afternoon, the fire is 20 percent contained and spans nearly 90 square miles– and was sparked by arcing power lines. On Wednesday afternoon, four separate fires merged into one large wildfire—creating the fire that they are now calling the 350 Complex, according to Forestry Officials. The fire has burned several structures as well grasslands.
