County Assessors Survey Guthrie Wildfire Damage

The Guthrie grassfire burned through more than 3,000 acres.

Thursday, May 8th 2014, 7:21 pm

By: News 9

County Assessors Survey Guthrie Wildfire Damage

The Guthrie grassfire burned through more than 3,000 acres.

There is not a lot to salvage in the disaster zone, but when you've lost everything, any type of savings helps. So, county assessors are accounting for all of the property lost because they know if anything can come from a pile of rubble, it's a tax break.

"That one is completely gone," said Ryan Lowrence.

Lowrence is a field appraiser for the Oklahoma County Assessor's office and his colleague located fire damaged homes on Thursday.

Lowrence's team is assisting Logan County. It's one government agency helping another, to make sure an already terrible situation is not made worse come property tax time.

"Your taxes are based off your property value. So, if your structure is gone, your value is going down. So it will help them out for this coming year property taxes," said Lowrence.

Lowrence's team identified at least 15 homes ruined, a day's work and there's still plenty more to do. It's estimated 42 structures burned in Logan County.

Lowrence said it's important to account for each one, so those properties can be adjusted on the tax roll. That way, victims won't get an end-of-year tax bill on a property that's destroyed. Assessors still have a lot of ground to cover.For more information go to Logancook.com