Oklahoma Man Rescued from Wildfire by Storm Trackers: 'God Was Watching Out For Us'

By Julie Brown Patton
Oklahoma Wildfire
An Oklahoma news team saved a man from a raging wildlife inferno when he became stuck in a ditch while trying to cut a fire line from on his road grader.  YouTube

When an Oklahoma man found himself trapped on a road grader during a Woods County wildfire Wednesday, he was lucky that a couple of local news storm trackers saw his predicament and rescued him before the flames engulfed his grader.

Val and Amy Castor were tracking the wildfires when they saw the man atop a road grader, and realized the worker was not going to make it out of a ditch, according to News 9.

The man was cutting a fire line when his grader got stuck on the side of the road.

The man, whose name is Jason Burks, jumped into the Castors' truck right before the fire spread to the grader. "Come on, guy, get out! Come on," Amy can be heard saying on the video of the rescue.

Val said they could feel the heat from the fire when they pulled up to the grader, and floored the truck once the man jumped in. "God was watching out of us, for sure," he added.

The same fire has been burning in Oklahoma, near the Kansas border, according to local news crews. It was scorched nearly 40 square miles of rural land. Officials said high winds made it challenging to put out the fires.

Oklahoma Forestry Services officials had issued a red flag alert, warning residents that "critical fire weather is on-going and conditions are favorable for rapid fire growth."

The warnings come as emergency services battle to contain fires that already destroyed at least 27,500 acres of land, report Oklahoma City's KOCO News 5.

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