Firefighters battling the 128,700-acre Mullen Fire have been able to complete a containment line around 6% of the blaze, officials said Friday.
Firefighters worked to create fuel breaks between roads and the main body of the fire in the Medicine Bow National Forest on Friday, relying on logging operations to help reduce heavy fuels around the Rambler, Foxborough and Fox Park areas, said Deon Steinley, a fire management team official.
On the west side of Albany, burnout operations are gradually moving west along the 513 and 542 Roads, according to fire tracking website InciWeb. On the south side, burnouts are continuing along the north sides of the Colorado Highways 127 and 125 to slow the fire’s spread south.
Meadow Plains Road south to Yankee Road and areas near Sheep Mountain to the Lake Hattie Reservoir and north of Highway 230 are now under a pre-evacuation warning.
In their evening update streamed to Facebook, Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team officials said that the fire had grown to affect 128,738 acres and 1,097 people are working to combat the fire.
In all areas of the fire, aerial firefighters are supporting personnel on the ground.
Fire managers’ goal is full suppression of the Mullen Fire. Firefighters will extinguish the fire as soon as possible, and keep it as small as possible, while reducing risks to the public and firefighters.
The active behavior of both the Mullen Fire and Cameron Peak Fire is creating increasing smoke impacts to southern Wyoming and northern Colorado.
