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County Commissioner Ray Vaughn stood near the fire Thursday wearing a pair of boots, jeans and a warm coat, and joked that he wanted some hot cocoa.

But this was no campfire. Rather, it was a fire pit larger than a dump truck, full of burning coals and broken tree limbs.

Load after load of tree limbs that snapped during the recent ice storm were hauled to the rural location near Indian Meridian Road and Coffee Creek Road, in an unincorporated area of the county.

By about 2 p.m. Thursday, more than 150 truck loads, or about 600 tons, of debris had been moved to the site from county wards 1 and 3.

"It's saving the county a substantial amount of money in disposing of it ourselves,” said Vaughn, who represents Ward 3. "It's saving a lot of landfill space also.”

The other option was to contract private firms to do the cleanup for the county, he said. He could not speculate on how much money that would cost.

The county is helping dispose of tree limbs and debris in unincorporated areas of eastern Oklahoma County and several small towns such as Arcadia and Luther.

"Luther got hit really bad,” Vaughn said. "There's a pecan orchard there that was just devastated. We're helping them clean up.”

By today, the county expects to have hauled an additional 150 truck loads to be burned. The giant hole is expected to be full of ash when the cleanup is complete.

An air blower was set up to produce a swifter burn, he said.

The effort began Wednesday. The crews covered the inferno before quitting Thursday night and will resume burning this morning and likely continue into next week.