Wildfire in Cimarron, Oklahoma

On May 14th lightning ignited what is known as the Ballard Fire in Cimarron County OK. While it's believed to be caused by lightning on May 14th, it wasn't noted until May 15th as it may have been to small, and then when the conditions favored the fire to spread on the 15th it became noticeable. The size of the fire in Cimarron County is 9,882, but since the fire burned into Colorado the total acres burned from both states is 18,321. As of May 19th the wildfire was noted as 65 percent contained.

A prolonged hot and dry period was set up for the Panhandles in mid May. And with the lack of significant rainfall to help transition the grasses from cured to green, the fuels were well above the 90th percentile in dryness. While it's not uncommon for a high based storm or two to occur west of the dryline and create dry thunderstorms, on May 14th it was certainly more scattered to nearly widespread storms that occurred. Several lightning ignitions occurred, and given that the storms had severe dry microbursts associated, the fires that ignited would spread quickly. Thereafter the Panhandles would go through several consecutive days of critical to extremely critical conditions. And the issues of any new starts, as well as active fires that ignited on May 14th would take another run were of high concern. Overall 20 wildfires ranging from over 34,000 acres to some as small as a few acres would ignite in the TX/OK Panhandle between the 14th and the 18th.