Oklahoma

Feb. 20 (UPI) — Wildfires have burned more than 300,000 acres in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, and more than a million people in the region were under a fire watch Friday.

No deaths were reported, but several structures have been damaged or destroyed in Oklahoma’s Panhandle, where a 283,000-acre Ranger Road Fire was 20% contained as of Friday morning, KFOR reported. That fire spread into parts of southwestern Kansas.

The Stevens Fire, 12,428 acres, and the Side Road Fire, 3,680 acres, in Oklahoma’s Texas County were 60% and 75% contained, respectively as of Friday morning.

The Poor Farm Fire in Latimer County was 10% contained after burning some 9,000 acres.

Among other significant fires, the 43 Fire in Woodward County has burned 1,680 acres and was 60% contained, while the 1,400-acre Rattlesnake Fire in Osage and Washington counties was only 30% contained.

Other active fires are the 182-acre Hospital Road Fire in Carter County, which was 40% contained; the 242-acre 615 Fire in Cherokee County, which was 70% contained; and the 126-acre Chelsea Fire in Rogers County, which was 60% contained.

Warm, dry and windy conditions in the area triggered the fires, and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday declared states of emergency for Woodward, Beaver and Texas counties.

Many residents have evacuated those counties, and a significant fire danger remains in Texas and Cimarron counties in the Panhandle region.

Local forecasters said cooling temperatures and lessening wind speeds are expected to reduce the threat of the fires spreading, but wind speeds of between 25 mph and 35 mph, with gusts of up to 60 mph, continued on Friday morning.

Feb. 19 (UPI) — Firefighters are battling several conflagrations in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, the largest of which burned more than 283,000 acres in Oklahoma’s Beaver County.

The Beaver County fire is located along Ranger Road and was 15% contained late Thursday afternoon, while a nearby Morning Fire started at 10:30 a.m. CST and is situated southeast of Boyd.

Officials for the Booker Volunteer Fire Department said the Morning Fire was under control shortly after noon, but two active fires in Oklahoma’s Texas County were still active.

The Stevens Fire was 50% contained after burning more than 12,000 acres, while the Side Road Fire was 60% contained and had burned 3,680 acres as of Thursday afternoon.

Firefighters in Texas’ Oldham and Potter counties had the 18,423-acre Lavender Fire 20% contained during the afternoon hours, and an evacuation order for Valley De Oro had been lifted.

In Donley County, Texas, the 8 Ball Fire was 50% contained after burning 13,00 acres, while the Canadian Bridge Fire in Hutchinson County was 100% contained after burning 428 acres.

Fire departments in Bartlesville, Ochelata, Oglesby, Oglesby, Tulsa, Barnsdall and Washington County in Oklahoma fought several fires on Thursday, and Ochelata and southern Bartlesville residents were told to evacuate.

Livestock also have been moved out of the fire zones, and many others fled on their own accord as smoke from the fires spread nearby.

No fatalities have been reported, and there are no reports yet regarding structural damage from the many fires.

From Broderick Turner: In the eyes of Lakers coach JJ Redick, every team his group faces is a test. Still, many wondered if the Lakers’ litmus test would come from facing the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night.

Even with All-Star and league most valuable player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander out with a strained abdominal, the Thunder are still a problem for most of the league. And the Lakers had to play OKC with their own MVP candidate, Luka Doncic, sitting out for the second straight game with a left hamstring strain.

In the end, it came down to the Lakers not being able to hold off the champion Thunder in the decisive fourth quarter of a 119-110 loss at Crypto.com Arena.

The Lakers (32-19) had six players score in double figures, but the Thunder had seven.

The Lakers shot 50% from the field, but the Thunder shot 48.3% from the field and 42.4% from three-point range.

“I think when you play the best teams, and Oklahoma City is clearly, you know they’re the best team, you have to have a really high level of effort, and you have to have a really high level of execution,” Redick said.

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Lakers box score

NBA standings

Dream job

From Steve Galluzzo: The NBA All-Star Game at Intuit Dome is days away, and no one is looking forward to it more than Barbara Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush and the NBA’s vice president of social impact. She found her “dream job” and is loving every minute of it.

“I played basketball until fifth grade. I grew up in Dallas and everyone watched the Mavericks. Then when I moved to Austin it was all about UT,” she said, referring to the University of Texas. “I never thought I’d work in basketball. For most of my career I’ve worked in global health with nonprofits. During COVID, I started paying more attention to the NBA as it utilized its arenas for vaccination sites and voting centers since you could be socially distanced and compliant by using them.”

While representing the foundation for which she worked, Bush attended meetings with NBA executives and sought ways to work together.

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This day in sports history

1908 — Tommy Burns knocks out Jack Palmer in the fourth round to defend his world heavyweight title in London.

1949 — Joe Fulks of Philadelphia scores 63 points in a 108-87 win over Indianapolis to set an NBA scoring record which would last for nearly a decade.

1952 — The Baltimore Bullets play the 48-minute game without making a substitution and beat the Fort Wayne Pistons 82-77.

1962 — Jim Beatty becomes the first American to break the 4-minute mile indoors with a 3:58.9 in Los Angeles.

1968 — Peggy Fleming wins the women’s Olympic figure skating gold medal in Grenoble, France.

1969 — LSU’s Pete Maravich scores 66 points in a 110-94 loss to Tulane.

1971 — Former first baseman Bill White becomes the first Black announcer in major baseball league history, signing to join the New York Yankees WPIX broadcast team.

1972 — Guy Lafleur becomes the first rookie in the NHL’s modern era to have three hat tricks in a season. Lafleur scores three goals and adds an assist in the Canadiens’ 7-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks.

1989 — K.C. Jones of the Boston Celtics and Lenny Wilkens of the Cleveland Cavaliers are elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Also elected is William “Pop” Gates, who played during the game’s barnstorming years in the 1930s and 1940s.

1991 — Charles Barkley of the Philadelphia 76ers, playing with a stress fracture in his left foot, becomes the NBA All-Star MVP with 17 points and 22 rebounds after leading the East to a 116-114 victory.

1992 — Bonnie Blair becomes the first woman to successfully defend an Olympic gold medal in 500-meter speed skating and the first American woman in any sport to win gold medals in consecutive Olympics.

1998 — Picabo Street, Alpine skiing’s comeback kid, overcomes a mistake about midway through her run and charges to an Olympic gold by one-hundredth of a second in the women’s super-G — the games’ first Alpine medal after three days of snow-related postponements.

2003 — Detroit’s Brett Hull becomes the sixth NHL player to score 700 regular-season goals. Hull beats San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov with a wrist shot in a 5-4 win over the Sharks.

2007 — Jaromir Jagr has three assists in the New York Rangers’ 5-2 win over Washington and becomes the 12th player in NHL history to score 1,500 points.

2017 — Golden State’s Draymond Green becomes the first player in NBA history to record a triple-double with fewer than 10 points scored. Green had 12 rebounds, 10 assists, 10 steals and 4 points in a 122-107 win over Memphis. Green also had five blocks, which made him the first player to record 10 steals and five blocks in a game since steals and blocks were first tracked in 1973-74.

2018 — Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla wins the first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Games and Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjoergen takes silver in the women’s 15-kilometer skiathlon to become the most decorated female Winter Olympian ever. Bjoergen captures her 11th career medal, breaking a three-way tie with Russian Raisa Smetanina and Italian Stefania Belmondo.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

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