Firefighters Contain Two Blazes in Dry Wyoming but Fear More

Hundreds of firefighters Saturday contained two fires that had blackened 7,645 acres of parched forest in Wyoming, but authorities said it could take days to douse the blazes completely.

Forest service officials, meanwhile, said they were worried that the dry conditions, combined with the expected onslaught of campers for the Labor Day weekend and hunting season next month, may mean another rash of fires.

“The worst part is yet ahead of us,” Bridger-Teton National Forest spokesman Fred Kingwill said.

A 1,145-acre fire sparked by lightning Monday in the Bridger-Teton forest near Bondurant, in western Wyoming, was contained Saturday evening and should be out by Tuesday night, Kingwill said.

A crew of 418 remained at the fire, using infrared aerial surveys to pick out hot spots that need to be wet down, he said.

More than 200 firefighters brought under control a 6,500-acre blaze that began Wednesday near the Black Hills National Forest, in northeastern Wyoming, forest spokeswoman Mary Sue Waxler said. That fire is expected to be out by tonight.

The Black Hills fire destroyed a mobile home, an unoccupied ranch house and about a dozen ranch buildings. It killed a bull, two cows and three calves, authorities said.

Kingwill said forest timber is the driest it has been in four years.

“We absolutely have to get the message out (that) the whole Western United States is dry, and people need to pay extreme attention to fires,” he said.

Of the 18 fires that hit the Bridger-Teton forest this summer, 15 were traced to campsites. Forest officials recorded .03 inch of rain at Bridger-Teton in the last month.