JENKS, Okla. — The Jenks City Council held an emergency meeting on Tuesday evening to consider a motion to officially declare a state of emergency due to the smoldering Gem Dirt fire.

The vote will allow the city to request additional help from state and federal agencies.

The fire started last Monday at Gem Dirt near West 101st Street and Highway 75. So far, they’ve used hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to keep the smolder from spreading.

Jenks Mayor Cory Box explained that the State of Emergency would bring to the city’s attention the need to deal properly with the conditions caused by the fire.

“If you look at it this way, it raises the flag as high as we possibly can and I have had a conversation with literally anyone that will listen and I have not had a conversation with the governor, but know he knows now and his staff did call today and they are waiting on this.”

The State of Emergency will also give the city access to additional federal and state resources.

“Declaring a state of emergency allows us to unlock additional resources and take swift action to protect our community,” said Mayor Box. “This is a necessary step to ensure we are doing everything possible to safeguard the people of Jenks, their property, and the natural environment surrounding the city.”

Jenks Fire Chief Greg Ostrum explained that the extra help that arrived on Tuesday while the declaration was in the works helped them to go on the offensive and work toward actively putting out the fire instead of just containing it.

“When I left the fire, we had about ten to fifteen percent extinguishment and that was after one full day today of operations.”

Joseph Kralicek, executive director of Tulsa Area Emergency Management, said crews are using 13 tanker trucks from multiple agencies to shuttle water as quickly as they can.

“First of all, we are dealing with about four and a half million cubic feet worth of material all compacted and moved into an area,” said Kralicek. “In order to fight this, we really have to turn over this entire mulch pile and then we have to soak it down and get it good and wet.”

According to Kralicek, crews extinguishing the fire will cause more smoke and dust to fill the air, which will potentially impact surrounding areas.

“That is the biggest issue we are going to see in these neighborhoods are those who might have known respiratory issues—such as asthma, emphysema and COPD—they are going to have those really exacerbated by the smoke and particular matter tossed up.”