From the Flames: A Lesson in Thanksgiving from a Man Who Survived a Raging Oklahoma Wildfire

Driving back to rural Dewey County, in western Oklahoma, floods Terry Burleson with memories and images from 3.5 years ago.

"How I escaped this wilderness on fire was by the grace of God," Terry says. 

Among the web of canyons and charred cedars, Terry survived. A miracle, left behind after nearly 300,000 acres burned in April of 2018. It started as a quick trip in the side-by-side to scout locations for a turkey hunt the following morning. Terry and two family members were rolling through the pasture when they saw the smoke. 

"It seemed to be a long way off and we weren't taking on any smoke,” he says. “So, it just felt like it was 10, 15 or 20 miles away." 

But in minutes, the fire was on top of them. It was being pushed by 50 mile per hour winds and now a wall of flames was racing across the landscape. Their road back was blocked and so they ran. 

"From that point is where we, for whatever reason, decided to split up," remembers Terry. "I don't know why even to this day." 

Terry, not expecting to ever get out, was in loafers as he tried to sprint through the canyons. Somewhere during his sprint, Terry lost his phone. The other two men, via fence lines and dirt roads, found a way to safety. Terry ran for his life, up hillsides and down canyons. He ran until he couldn't,

"My mind was telling me the fire was going to jump and at any moment I was going to be sandwiched," Terry says. "I kind of gave up and I laid down to die." 

As he listened to the fire howling around him, he found peace.

"I talked to my wife once, right when we got out of the Ranger," remembers Terry. "I talked to her and told her we were out on foot; we were in it, and it doesn't look good."  

He lay at the bottom of the canyon, as cedars exploded around him. 

"I don't know, I wasn't scared and maybe that's a God thing, too," Terry says. 

As the heat rolled over him, the burning drove Terry to his feet. He was gasping through the smoke as he climbed out of the canyon and eventually broke the tree line onto flat ground. A small road created the perfect fire line.

"The way that road angles and the way the wind was blowing the same direction, that's the only thing that allowed that fire to backburn past me," Terry says. 

It wasn't long before the flames came roaring back to life. This time it was on his side of the road. 

"That grass was about waist high," Terry says. "So, you can imagine the flames were probably 10 feet and created just a big wall."

Terry worked his way from one safe spot to another, laying as flat to the ground as could, beneath the smoke. Eventually, he was forced back across the road and into the ashes. He was safe as the fire once again raged past him. 

Several hours went by and as night began to settle in Terry got to his feet, disoriented, hurting and lost. By chance or by providence he turned left down that road.

"Something told me to go left," Terry says. "I was very fortunate because when I turn the corner, I saw a water trough and a windmill." 

Water! Terry wet his face, but he didn't drink. He says given his situation he was worried it might make him sick. Then he laid down, out of the smoke on the cool concrete ring. That's where he stayed until daylight. 

Meanwhile, his family feared the worst. They were kept away from the area by authorities and the raging fire.

"Knowing what the wind was doing, seeing the fire and watching it on the news we were just holding out for hope, begging God that he survives and praying all through the night," recalls Mark Price, a family member. “You can’t sleep, and everyone was worried, nervous, scared and frustrated.”

When daylight broke, Price rallied the others from the family. 

"I said it's time to go," said Price. "We've got to go find him." 

That morning, a few hundred yards at a time, Terry followed the trail across the pasture to a dirt road and then started toward the western Oklahoma town of Camargo.

"When I got across this cattle guard that's when I saw a pickup coming," Terry says.

He sank to the ground, and the men offered him water. Five minutes later his family arrived.

"When we pulled up to that cattle guard, I saw him sitting in the road and I threw it in park, jumped out, jumped up in the air and screamed, ‘He's alive, he's alive, thank God he's alive,’" Price says. "Then I thought, I've got to call his wife. So I grabbed the phone and I called her. I said, we found him. He’s alive. Then I hung up.”

Price laughs he probably didn’t share enough information, which worried family at the time. 

"I got in trouble for that, and they said, you know, you didn't really give us a lot of information," Price says. 

Local ambulance director Katrina Bryant was the first to arrive.

"Truthfully,  [Terry]  was in good shape," Bryant remembers. "I was expecting to be doing a body recovery, and the way that fire was burning, we probably wouldn't have found a body. We probably would have found ashes." 

She says the entire emergency team knew he was missing and seeing him alive lifted spirits.

"When they found him, the talk on the radio chatter was just renewed life," Bryant says.

Terry spent 21 days in the hospital, suffering third-degree burns on his arms and parts of his torso. His head and face had first-degree burns.

Exactly how and why he survived is a question Terry has grown to live with.

"You'll hear God's in control and so either he is, or he isn't. It's one of the two. It can't be both,” Terry says.

"I know if the same thing happened to me, he wouldn't stop until he found me. And you know, that's just it's a story of brotherhood, a story of friendship," said Price. 

"I try not to get emotional about it," Terry says, surveying the place once more. "To come back and see it is all still a little bit surreal." 

From fire and ashes to walking among the living, Terry counts it a miracle. He remains thankful for every step along the way.