Emergency officials have issued new evacuation orders as wildfires continue to spread in Oklahoma County. According to Oklahoma County EMS, residents in the area between Hiwassee Road and Choctaw Road, from Coffee Creek to Waterloo Road, should evacuate immediately due to the approaching fire threat.

The town of Leedey, Oklahoma was evacuated Friday afternoon due to a fast-moving wildfire. A wildfire outbreak appears likely today across the southern Plains as extreme to historic fire weather conditions spread from the Texas Panhandle and Rolling Hills Country into much of Oklahoma and southeast Kansas.

The winds are expected to be strongest and the fire risk highest in an area extending from north Texas across central Oklahoma into southeast Kansas and including a smidgen of Missouri. Wind speeds could top 90 miles per hour in the most extreme cases.

Many wildfires in eastern Oklahoma have already sparked this March, and this week, the state will begin moving toward ‘extreme’ wildfire level risk.