Hot, dry weather spurs fast-growing fires around Wyoming

New wildfires are forcing evacuations as hot, dry weather spurred red flag warnings across more than half of Wyoming on Thursday.

The largest and fastest-growing blaze straddles the Montana-Wyoming border in a rural area north of Gillette. First spotted Wednesday afternoon, the Short Draw Fire has now burned more than 30,500 acres, according to online dispatch system WildCAD.

“That is extreme fire behavior,” Campbell County Fire Department Fire Marshal Stuart Burnham said Thursday afternoon.

The fire has forced evacuations for the Border Line Estates/Ranchettes area, while residents around Buffalo Creek were asked to prepare to evacuate.

That includes those living “all the way east to Butte Creek Road including Bay Horse Road and north all the way to East Powder Road,” the Powder River [Montana] Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook.

Some outbuildings have burned in the fire, Burnham said, but it’s not yet clear whether anyone’s home has burned.

There have been efforts among area neighbors to gather livestock while suppressing flames, though one person was injured doing so, Burnham added. That person was treated at the hospital and is now recovering back at home.

Winds unexpectedly blew south, southwest Thursday, Burnham said, threatening more structures, but was shifting northward as of that afternoon, which was anticipated.

“We do have some resources over there that are trying to do structure protection,” he said, including helicopter bucket drops. “The wind is definitely a factor, and just trying to gauge which way it’s pushing really determines which structures are threatened.”

While Friday is expected to be cooler, Burnham said thunderstorms are anticipated, which could mean more lightning, wind and fire ignitions.

The Campbell County Fire Department is working with neighboring counties to help suppress new fires if they spring to life, he said. They also have a “Type 3” incident management team, which includes multiple agencies and manages major incidents.

“It’s certainly not all on the Campbell County Fire Department,” Burnham said. “We have some great, great help from the BLM and the Forest Service, and the ranchers have been great … Everybody’s banding together and we’re trying to do the best we can to save what we can.”

Fires elsewhere

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the state in Albany County, the Bear Creek Fire induced several evacuation warnings Thursday north of Laramie.

It’s unclear how many acres have burned so far, but those being asked to prepare to leave include:

• A five-mile radius of mile marker 15 on Highway 34 in Sybille Canyon.
• Albany Country Road 12 to Morton Pass.
• Highway 34 west to Morton Pass, from Morton Pass to mile marker 18 (including all of Country Road 21) and east to mile marker 24.

Crews were also contending the West Warm Springs Fire in Hot Springs County, which was spotted Monday and has grown to 1,610 acres. It was 30% contained as of Thursday afternoon.

The lightning-induced blaze is southeast of Thermopolis and has triggered a response from a range of federal and county engines, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

The Poison Spider Fire was spotted west of Casper on Wednesday and also burned about 45 acres by that evening.

Several long-standing fires continue to burn in Wyoming, also, including:

• The Fish Creek Fire northeast of Jackson and west of Dubois (nearly 25,000 acres burned at 69% containment)
• The House Draw Fire south of Buffalo (more than 174,000 acres burned at 95% containment)
• The Flat Rock Fire west of Gillette (more than 52,000 acres at 97% containment)
• The Constitution Fire north of Gillette (more than 24,000 acres at 95% containment).

There are several other much smaller blazes, but their circumstances may change rapidly.

As for the Short Draw Fire in northeastern Wyoming, Burnham says he expects it to continue to grow as fire crews ramp up resource allocations and make plans to tackle it.

“There’s a well-established column, and it’s definitely been working this morning, growing throughout the day,” he said. “So with the winds on it this afternoon, it’ll unfortunately continue to grow.”

All recreators around the state, particularly in red flag areas , are asked to use extreme caution and avoid any open flames and activities that could spark even more fires.

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