Elk Fire continues its southeast march, grows…

Like a column of soldiers, the Elk Fire continues its methodical – and at times seemingly relentless – march southeast, following the eastern face of the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming.

“That’s a good way to look at it,” said Kristie Thompson, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team assigned to the fire. “We are on the offensive and trying to put (resources) where we can take a position.”

This position is expected on Red Grade Road, which generally runs east to west in the path of the wildfire’s advance. It has been identified as “Gandalf’s point” for Elk Fire – from that point onwards, it will not pass.

Crews have spent the last few days working along and around the road, as well as making strategic fires to burn fuels within the fire perimeter that the wildfire has not yet reached.

That brought the fire’s size back up as of Sunday morning to about 87,649 acres, the incident management team reports. It also reduced overall fire containment to 28%, down from 32% reported the previous morning.

But that doesn’t mean the Elk Fire’s 901 firefighters are losing ground, Thompson said.

In fact, the latest fire situation map released Sunday morning shows that, along with further growth to the southeast, the containment line is significantly higher. It is essentially contained along much of the east face of the fire, except for the problem area in the far southwest, approaching Red Grade Road.

Now the fire is just 2 miles from the road in some spots, Thompson said. This is why there is so much focus on strategic burning and building a fire line that will hopefully slow or stop the progress of the Elk Fire.

It’s strategic almost like a battle scenario, with the enemy marching towards you and planning how to stop you.

“That’s a big reason why we started looking at how we would go on the offensive and how we would take position against the fire in this southeast area,” she said. “We anticipated this and that’s why we started these firing operations… and tried to get it away from structures and people.”

About the weather

Not helping matters is an extension of the unusually hot and dry weather, the incident team reports.

Afternoon winds continue to reinvigorate the fire, which overall has been “strange,” Thompson said.

It’s breaking most of the rules for wildfires in Wyoming, starting with burning so big and so fast late in the season.

“He’s doing weird things,” she said. “Normally, fire wants to go up, but this one wants to go down. Typically, fires want to burn more during the day, but this one appears to be active at night.”

Going forward, priorities continue to reinforce Red Grade Road as well as “continue to protect the fire line along the eastern foothills of the Bighorns to prevent fire impacts to at-risk values, including homes and livestock forage,” according to with the report.

While much of the attention is focused on the southeast of the fire, there is also a lot of work on the west side, including protecting structures in the Burgess Junction area.

A tale of two fires

Looking at the most recent fire map, it’s easy to see how its focus has changed over the past week.

Last Sunday, people in Dayton were on edge, under orders to be ready to evacuate. The fire had spread dangerously and terrifyingly across the face of the mountain the night before.

Since then, the fire has advanced well south of the city, far enough that it is now west of Big Horn.

There is no danger for that city Sunday morning, Thompson said.

Meanwhile, another large active wildfire in Wyoming, the Pack Trail Fire, continues to burn without containment in the Bridger-Teton National Forest west of Dubois, near and around Highway 26.

It had grown to 75,370 acres as of Sunday morning, according to the incident management team fighting the fire.

Top priorities continue to be protecting structures and people along the Highway 26 and Union Pass Road corridor. Crews are also working to build containment lines along Forest Service Road 540 and along the Lava Burn scar.

For Sunday, winds are expected to be “very light,” the incident team reports, with some “potential for fire movement along the western edge.”

Greg Johnson can be achieved in [email protected].