The 320 firefighters on the Dollar Lake Fire north of Pinedale face daunting conditions as they battle the 13,449-acre blaze burning in heavy timber on steep and rocky ground, the incident commander told WyoFile on Tuesday.
August Isernhagen of the Sierra Front/Nevada Team 5 interagency fire team said his group hopes to establish some containment around the fire as cooler weather provides a break today. A situation report Tuesday listed 0% containment, which Isernhagen hopes to change.
“The forest is overgrown and has a lot of dead tree material that historically would have burned,” he said in a telephone interview. “Due to fire suppression over the [last] century, it has built up.”
His team described a forest of “lodgepole, mixed conifer with dead and down trees [that’s] receptive to burning and is exhibiting high to extreme behavior.”
“It’s all but impossible to go in direct, due to the heat.”
August Isernhagen
The crown fires in the timber and “over 100-foot flame lengths” drive the blaze, Isernhagen said. Further, the fire is burning across steep, rocky terrain that’s inaccessible to firefighting vehicles.
“Those things put together makes it especially difficult,” Isernhagen said, “even with aircraft support.”
Ground crews need to be wary in such terrain, he said. “It’s all but impossible to go in direct, due to the heat.”
Because of those factors, firefighters have to adopt a strategy that takes advantage of natural fire breaks like cliffs, ridgetops and slower-burning meadows where they can construct fire lines. “It’s more of trying to catch and corral rather than just flat putting it out,” he said.
State of emergency
The Dollar Lake Fire, which has now burned to the slopes above lower Green River Lake, caused Gov. Mark Gordon to declare a state of emergency Monday. He did so as Sublette County officials expanded evacuation notices and put Kendall-area residents in a heightened state of evacuation preparedness.
The southern fire front is “rapidly expanding towards Red Cliff Bible camp, and the Kendall Valley area in Cora,” Gordon’s order reads. It “continues to threaten private and public property and the lives of Wyoming citizens.”
A map released Tuesday shows the fire within a mile of the camp. Isernhagen’s team has bolstered defenses around the bible camp, according to an update.
Another fire front to the east is burning above the Green River Lake campground and has entered the Bridger Wilderness.
The governor said the fire is “beyond the usual scope to be handled by the normal county and municipal operating services,” and it endangers the health, safety, economy and resources of Wyoming residents.
The order directs the Office of Homeland Security, the Wyoming National Guard and other state departments to aid the firefighting effort.
The updated evacuation warning issued by Sublette County put the Kendall neighborhood of about 150 residential lots on notice to be “set” to evacuate. “Set” is the middle of three evacuation levels.
Already, the bible camp and structures on the Bible Camp Road are in the “go” stage, meaning residents should have left or must leave immediately. The “go” evacuation notice covers an area within about 5 miles of Dollar Lake where the fire started Friday.
Some residents south of Kendall and farther from the fire have been told to be ready to evacuate.
The Bridger-Teton National Forest will host a community meeting at 6 p.m. tonight in the Sublette County Library. The event will be livestreamed on the Bridger-Teton National Forest Facebook page.
Isernhagen said his new neighbors in the Kendall Valley have been “beyond accommodating and hospitable.” It is “an amazing community to be in and around.”
The Forest Service listed the cause of the fire as “lightning/natural.”
Horse rescue
On the first day of the fire, outfitter Todd Stevie said “yes” when a neighbor called for help rescuing horses in the path of the Dollar Lake Fire.
The operator of Thompson Outfitters on the Bridger-Teton National Forest near Green River Lakes received a call from Kim Cannon when the fire ignited. Cannon was many counties away, but three of his horses were corralled right near Green River Lakes.
The Dollar Lake Fire was racing toward them. Pushed by winds, the blaze was galloping toward the corral and Stevie’s basecamp.
Stevie, his wife Bev and guide Dustin Lindley, drove miles along a dirt and gravel road toward the corral, reached the horses Friday and rode them across the Green River at a ford. They loaded the mounts into a trailer, then drove like hell as roadside heat and flames spurred them on.
“It was a little sketchy and a little warm,” Stevie said Monday. Lindley drove a 1996 GMC one-ton pulling a gooseneck trailer and the horses.
“I drove it like I stole it and hoped to hell there was no leak in the fuel pump,” Cannon said of Lindley’s account.
As of Monday, Thompson Outfitters’ camp remained intact, Stevie said, but it’s still under threat. “Last I knew the feedground cabin was still standing,” he said of the nearby Game and Fish elk feeding outpost.
There’s no telling what will become of the hunting season, Stevie said.
“It’s never fun to go through one of these deals,” he said. “The Forest Service [and] Sublette County firefighters have done a great job protecting our structures and our business.”
Map?
Would this be an appropriate place to send our National Guard vs fighting non-issues in out of state cities?