Fire season continues to sizzle

Another week of dry heat with the occasional flash of lightning has brought another week of fires throughout Crook County. Fortunately, says Fire Warden Doug Leis, so far they’ve mostly been relatively small.

“We did have a little rash of fires throughout the week,” says Leis. “Most of them were smaller fires, just lightning strike little things.”

The largest fire of the week appears to have been caused by a downed power line. According to Moorcroft Fire Chief Rusty Williams, the live line was knocked down by wind the evening before and smoldered on the ground overnight.

“It burned 42 acres out at Pine Ridge,” Leis says.

The Cedar Ridge Fire was reported at around 12:35 p.m. and a special advisement went out shortly after to residents in the area near Pine Ridge Road and south towards the interstate.

“Getting into those trees, there are a lot of houses out there,” Leis says. For this reason, nearby residents were asked to consider voluntarily evacuating due to the nature of the fire and where it might be headed, with an estimated 35 structures in the immediate danger area.

However, within approximately four hours, fire crews from Moorcroft, Pine Haven and Carlile were able to bring the fire under control.

“They did a wonderful job, as they always do,” Leis says. “We’ve got some fantastic people in this county.”

By Saturday night at around 5 or 6 p.m., the fire was under control, he continues. Crews continued to check on it throughout the night and again the next day.

Thankfully, the other fires reported over the week were “little, bitty fires out in the middle of nowhere,” says the fire warden.

“Most of them were right around an acre,” he says. “They were all small and didn’t really threaten anything.”

According to Great Plains Fire Information, other fires reported over the last week include the West Ashdown Canyon Fire, nine miles east-northeast of Sundance, which was caused by lightning and a third of an acre in size. It was reported at 11:09 a.m. on June 11 and contained 90 minutes later.

On the same day, the Buttes Fire was reported at 1:03 p.m. ten miles southeast of Sundance. Also caused by lightning, it was half an acre in size.

On June 10, the Lytle Creek Fire reached 2.4 acres in size. It was reported at 3:08 p.m. eight miles northwest of Sundance and the cause is unknown.

Later that day, just under ten miles southeast of Sundance, the Geroch Fire reached just 0.1 acres in size and was also caused by lightning. The Grand Fire was reported at 8:04 p.m. a mile south of Vore’s, reached 0.35 acres and was controlled by the next morning; lightning was again the cause.

Several more smaller fires were reported on Monday evening and into the following night, with mop-up continuing into Tuesday morning. This included the T Hill Fire seven miles northeast of Hulett, which was estimated at 9.3 acres in size on Tuesday morning, with reports of new events throughout the day.

Across the border in Weston County, the Skull Creek Fire was finally contained on Friday evening. According to a news release, the fire located around six miles northwest of Osage grew to around 1000 acres thanks to dry fuels, hot temperatures, low humidity and wind.

No Crook County firefighters have been involved in this incident. However, assistance was offered if needed and Crook County volunteers did take care of a fire near Upton on Thursday evening.

“They had a fire right outside of Upton and we ran a truck over there and took care of it. Somebody threw a cigarette there on the side of the road and it just burned about a 50-foot circle,” Leis says.

Fire season always tends to see volunteers band together across a wide area, as evidence by one Crook County volunteer heading out this week to assist with the Johnson Fire in Silver City, New Mexico.

“We’ve been getting a lot of support out of the county, people helping and keeping us fed,” says Leis of the community banding together here at home.

Things aren’t looking to get much less risky as fire season continues, Leis says, and he expects to invoke a full fire ban shortly.

“It only gets worse from here,” he says. “They’re saying it’s going to get worse in July and August as far as the heat and dryness.”

This fire season, Crook County Emergency Management is advocating for all residents to sign up for CodeRED, the emergency notification system. This can be found on the county website and will be utilized by emergency responders to notify the community of imminent threats.