Residents Return Home After Lightning Sets Fire To Gas Line In Oologah

A lightning strike is being blamed for a series of fires caused by a gas meter and a downed power line.

Fire crews in Rogers County evacuated homes in a neighborhood near Highway 169 and East 400 Road, where the explosions happened Tuesday night around 6 p.m.

"These people right over here banged on the door and said my backyard was on fire," said Rebecca Slover.

Rescue crews rushed to get everyone out of the Oologah neighborhood after a lighting strike hit a power line. That power line came crashing down and struck a gas meter.

Three separate fires from gas lines were burning in a four square block area.

"We're talking about a half-mile from the original point of incident here. We're talking about a half-mile from where fires are happening," said Northwest Rogers County Fire Chief David Puckett.

Rebecca Slover said she was happy to make it out. Her husband came racing home from work to see a ball of flames in their backyard.

"I'm so happy it wasn't the storage building or the house or nothing, nobody got hurt or nothing. I didn't know we were having a thunderstorm at work. They said lightning had hit a line," Johnny Slover said.

The Slover family says they're happy nobody was hurt.

They watched crews try to contain the blaze from the other side of the street.

"But I don't know how long it's going to be before we get in there, before the gas gets cut off," Johnny said.

They said they were just ready to get back inside.

By around 8 p.m., Oklahoma Natural Gas workers had shut the gas off in the neighborhood. They then began going door-to-door with meters, measuring the gas levels in each home.

Residents were finally allowed back in their homes after 10 p.m.