The Fish Creek Fire in the Bridger-Teton National Forest has grown about 800 acres since Tuesday to more than 3,200 acres and remains at 0% containment.
U.S. Highway 26/287 remains open over Togwotee Pass, but the U.S. Forest Service is working closely with the Wyoming Department of Transportation to put up emergency signs that remind motorists of the potential for heavy smoke.
“We've got more emergency vehicles on the highways traveling to and from the fire,” Forest Service spokeswoman Ranae Pape told Cowboy State Daily. “We just want to remind folks to slow down, turn their headlights on for safety, fog lights too.”
The blaze, which is being fueled by heavy timber and standing dead Engelmann spruce, has grown too big for local firefighting resources to handle, prompting the Forest Service to call in a Wyoming Type 3 incident management team, which took over Tuesday.
“I just got on the fire yesterday, so we're still assessing the kind of the work that's going to go into it,” Pape said. “Our priorities are definitely going to be protecting those critical values at risk, which include outfitter camps, structure protection, public and firefighter safety, power lines, and keeping the highway open and safe for folks, especially with the increased smoke that we are seeing from this fire.”
The fire was started by lightning Friday and by Tuesday had burned more than 2,500 acres of heavy timber in the Bridger-Teton National Forest about 7 miles southeast of Togwotee Pass.
Working For Containment
The incident management team is scouting containment lines around the Fish Creek area and determining if there are old burn scars and natural features that they can use as perimeters to control the fire.
“They’re going to start prepping around the Togwotee pinnacle summer home areas as well as the Brooks Lodge area,” Pape said. “We are just prepping and scouting out in those areas for support.”
The Forest Service is working closely with several different agencies such as the National Weather Service to monitor the fire. Seventy-one firefighters are currently working on the Fish Creek Fire.
“Currently, the fire has a tendency of wanting to go in that northeast direction with the winds that are happening,” Pape said. “That's kind of driving it up and over to that area we have on the closure map. We see some thunderstorms coming in and out, and so those are going to affect and drive the fire in the direction that those winds will take it. We're kind of just prepping, doing some scouting and finding areas that that we can get some containment on this fire.”
In Dubois, residents are keeping an eye on the visible clouds of smoke. There is a bit of apprehension, according to resident Jasmine Kintzler.
“We live by the Dubois Airport, and I’m told the fire is about 16 miles away,” Kintzler said. “There is concern as the fire is relatively close to town, and we have limited resources and ways to exit.”
Updates are being publicly posted to the Forest Service’s InciWeb page, Pape said.
Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com
On her morning commute to Jackson on Tuesday, Jasmine Kintzler took photos of the smoke hanging over Togwotee Pass. (Courtesy Jasmine Kintzler) 
Photos of the smoke seen from Dubois, Wyoming, on Aug. 17, 2024. (Courtesy Jasmine Kintzler) 
(Courtesy Jasmine Kintzler)
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
