Western Wyoming fire danger improves slightly
Recent rain and cooler temperatures have prompted Grand Teton National Park, the National Elk Refuge, and Bridger-Teton National Forest to lower the regional fire danger to “high.”
Even so, significant moisture is still needed to reduce the potential for new fire starts and to prevent those starts from becoming larger fires.
At “high” fire danger, fires can still start easily and spread quickly.
Two new fires were reported on the Bridger-Teton National Forest Wednesday. The one-quarter acre White Rock Fire near Upper Green River Lake was human-caused. The Beaver Trail Fire was caused by lightning and has burned one-tenth of an acre near Lookout and Horse mountains in the Wyoming Range.
Fire managers use a variety of factors to determine fire danger ratings, including the moisture content of grasses, shrubs, and trees, projected weather conditions, and the ability of fire to spread after it starts.
Teton Interagency fire crews have been assigned to multiple fires across the country. Interagency staff, incident management teams, fire engines, helicopters, and hand crews have responded to the Britania Mountain Fire in southeast Wyoming, the Mill Creek 1 fire in California, the South Sugarloaf Fire in Nevada, the Stewart Creek fire in Idaho, Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park recovery efforts, and other incidents.
