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200 evacuated as fire burns in Gros Ventre Mountains JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) – Two hundred people evacuated homes, cabins and campsites as a wildfire swept 2,000 acres of the Bridger-Teton National Forest on Wednesday. “It was quite a horrific sight to see the flames leaping all over the place,” said Barbara Hetherington of Corona, Calif., who evacuated her family’s cabin with her two grandsons. Fires have burned more than 20,000 acres in Wyoming in the past week. The Boulder Fire was about 15 miles east of Jackson in the Gros Ventre Range. About 60 understaffed firefighters doused flames, rooftops and vegetation as cooler temperatures and higher humidity helped stall the fire about a mile away from dwellings, officials said. “That was literally everything we could scrape together from our resources although some crews have begun to arrive,” spokesman Dave Cunningham said. Hetherington and her grandsons, on vacation, are staying at a motel until they are allowed back into the cabin that has been in the family for 36 years. She said she is not worried about the home, but the sight of the fire was eye opening, as rangers escorted them in to pick up last minute items, such as fishing poles and clothes. “There were big pine trees exploding and it looked like a bunch of campfires all over the hillside,” she said. The fire started between Boulder and Little Granite creeks. A Red Cross shelter was set up for evacuees at Jackson Hole High School gymnasium. Most staying there are teachers from across the country who are participating in an environmental workshop that was supposed to be held in Granite Creek Campground. Seminar organizer Donald J. Brown, of Safari Club International Foundation, said 47 participants will stay a second night at the high school, on cots in their sleeping bags. They have been continuing the seminar with lectures and visits to ecological sites. Community support has lifted everyone’s spirits, he said. Local residents offered other places to stay, however, the gym was the best way to continue with the seminar. “Our goal was keeping them together and keeping with the program as much as possible and that has been successful for us so far with all the support from the Red Cross, high school and community,” he said. Evacuees might be able to return to the forest Thursday, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Mary Tyler said. Those who fled included residents of about 25 summer homes, three or four year-round homes and about 100 people from Granite Creek Campground. The fire was started by lightning July 26 but not detected for five days, spokesman Tom Ninnemann said. It grew from 700 acres Tuesday morning and was consuming mostly conifer along with grass and brush on steep, heavily wooded terrain. Firefighters from local, state and federal agencies along with a helicopter were on scene. A request was made for more help. Sixteen South Carolina firefighters were dispatched, as were three Forest Service firefighters from North Carolina. “They’re doing bucket drops from the helicopter,” Ninneman said. “They’re trying to build some fire lines but mostly the effort now is structure protection and trying to keep the fire northwest of the road, to protect the people and the structures on the other side of the road.” The forecast was for more gusty storms but little moisture. “We’ve been getting mostly dry thunderstorms through here,” he said. The Forest Service plans to restrict campfires and other burning activities in Grand Teton National Park and Bridger-Teton Forest, starting Friday. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced statewide restrictions beginning Thursday. In Yellowstone National Park, crews were monitoring four lightning-caused fires. The largest was on the Pitchstone Plateau in the southwest corner of the park and had scorched about 2 acres of whitebark pine and subalpine fir clumps, officials said. Other small fires were burning an acre or less. A wildfire southwest of Casper picked up again after residents returned to three homes evacuated Tuesday. The blaze threatened at least one home Wednesday and forced firefighters to push back estimates of when it would be contained. Nearly 300 firefighters plus water-dropping helicopters had contained 90 percent of the 5,700-acre fire, federal interagency spokeswoman Jamie Kingsbury said. Lightning sparked the blaze Saturday, scorching ponderosa pine, sagebrush, grass and juniper on federal, state and private land. As many as 26 homes were threatened at one time. In southeastern Wyoming, the Green Mountain fire had burned about 75 acres on Laramie Peak. Lightning started the blaze. In the Big Horn Basin, more than 400 firefighters had partly contained a wildfire that seared about 13,500 acres of juniper, limber pine and sage about 15 miles south of Meeteetse between Enos and Left Hand creeks. The fire, which began as two lightning-caused fires a mile apart, was expected to be contained by Sunday but firefighters were also dealing with two new fires in the area Wednesday, officials said. The main fire, 40 percent contained, had burned mostly U.S. Bureau of Land Management land but also state and private land. The new blazes were about two miles north of the main fire. The largest was 155 acres. The other was less than 5 acres. A fire which burned 540 acres about seven miles east of Thermopolis, was declared contained Monday. As of Wednesday, 47 large fires were burning more than 700,000 acres across the West and hundreds more smaller fires had been started by lightning since Tuesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
National Fire Information Center: http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html
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