BLACKROCK RANGER STATION—The Spread Creek Fire on the Bridger-Teton National Forest grew to cover 257 acres within 24 hours of a Wednesday afternoon lightning strike. Forest Service officials summoned 150 firefighters, plus engines and aircraft, to extinguish the early season conflagration.
Firefighters are employing “a full suppression strategy using direct tactics along the fire edge,” said Dave Wilkins, the fire’s incident commander and the Bridger-Teton’s north zone fire management officer. “It is burning in heavy timber, pretty challenging topography.”
The blaze is a harbinger of what could be a tough summer for firefighters.
“It’s an early start to the fire season, for sure,” Wilkins said.
“We had a below-average snowpack, a really warm March,” he said at the Blackrock Ranger Station on Thursday morning beneath wisps of smoke from the fire four miles to his south. “We’re four to five weeks ahead of normal with fuel moisture and conditions.”
No critical values — buildings, camps, settlements and such — are currently at risk, said Jason Wilmot, the forest’s Blackrock District ranger. Nevertheless, “we expect fire behavior to pick up this afternoon.”
Forest workers at Blackrock saw the lightning strike that sparked the blaze, Wilmot said. A storm cell moved through the area just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, producing “a bunch of lightning strikes,” he said.
“An hour later, we had a smoke report.”
Winds were too high to immediately use direct tactics — where firefighters have one foot in the black char of the burn, the other in unburned forest as they etch out fire lines, he said. Wilkins described the blaze’s immediate spread Wednesday.
“We did see spotting up to a quarter mile,” he said of the leapfrog advance. “Sage was available [to burn], even the willows.”
Firefighters generally start their lines at the upwind point of ignition, then work toward the leading edge, usually attacking that front with aircraft.
Teton County’s Search and Rescue helicopter worked Thursday morning, shuttling a dangling water bag between Spread Creek and the fire. On-order aircraft include two “scoopers” that load water on the go.
The Flagstaff Road, a gravel side-country byway that runs through the middle of the fire, will remain closed. No evacuations have been ordered for the area, which includes a few restaurants, small hotels and ranches.
