‘Difference of opinion’ continues over Oklahoma wildfire fallout

The unfolding tension between Oklahoma’s Governor Kevin Stitt and the forestry service continued Wednesday, the day after Stitt’s office published a map detailing the apparent deployment movements of Oklahoma Forestry Service crews during the March 14 wildfire outbreak. 

A map tells a story 

The map explains how many resources were deployed during the day and exactly where and when they responded to fires across the state. 

On the map were the boundaries of the agency’s three protection areas, situated among Eastern Oklahoma. 

A portion of the map said 86 OFS fire personnel and 20 support personnel reported to work the morning of the fires. Recently, fire forestry director Mark Goeller told News 9 that, days before the outbreak, OFS had close to 100 firefighters. 

“We do have our fire protection areas that we have resources there 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Goeller said in a March 12 interview. “And that's basically from Ottawa County, all the way down to McCurtain County and over west into Atoka County. And so, if you take that big area, those resources are also available for surge capacity to come over out of the protection area farther over towards the Tulsa metro and even beyond into Creek County, Osage County, whatever.” 

Governor Stitt has repeatedly taken issue with how many crews were positioned in their protection areas. 

“I’m tired of talking about it,” Stitt said in a Wednesday press conference. “I terminated the people. I felt like the person at the top did not put all the fire hoses and those resources on the fires. I think Oklahomans agree with me. I think Oklahomans understand when you got all these resources at the state level and we have the worst wildfires in state history, and you’re not deploying them to those fires, you’re leaving half those resources in Eastern Oklahoma, that’s a problem.” 

A different view 

House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, a self-proclaimed close ally and personal friend to Governor Stitt, said he continues to have a “difference of opinion” on the issue. 

Specifically, Hilbert said he received a call from the Mayor of Mannford during the fires asking for state assistance. That’s when Hilbert said he then called the state’s director of emergency management, who reportedly planned to redirect a crew near Eufaula initially but was cut short when a fire broke out near Eufaula. 

“If that team had already been in Mannford, and then that fire pops up in Eufaula, you have to have teams stationed throughout the state when you're in events like this,” Hilbert said in a Wednesday press conference, referring to the Governor’s remarks about where resources were deployed geographically. “And so that's all we're saying. I think that's when I look at the information, what I see.” 

Hilbert said in the case of March 14, the state’s director of emergency management was eventually able to redirect a team from Rogers County to Mannford. 

“When I look about at the data that has been released, it looks to me that, if not 100%, very close to 100% of the assets were deployed,” he said. “Now, not all of the assets were deployed outside of their service area. Some stayed in the area where they were originally assigned, but half the assets were deployed outside of service area.”