Water sprayers, burn lines and gouges in the grassland are part of the fight against aggressive wildfires that have already burned 250,000 acres in northern Wyoming.
“There’s a ton of people, fire trucks from all over, and support on this,” Loren Carlat, of Carlat Construction in Buffalo, told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. Carlat brought his blades and bulldozers to the edge of the roughly 165,000-acre House Draw Fire in Johnson County, which exploded after lightning sparked it Wednesday.
When he gave his phone interview Friday, he was back in Buffalo fixing up a broken-down fire truck that a fire crew from Rock Springs brought to help the local teams. The crew had brought its broken truck around Friday morning when firefighters and media met for an official briefing, and asked if Carlat had a mechanic available.
He did. He sent one person to Billings, Montana, to get a part and planned to have it installed by afternoon.
Carlat had the opposite scenario Thursday night out in the grasslands, when a grader blew a hose and Johnson County Road and Bridge personnel helped fix it on scene. The county workers worked on the blade through the night to get it running.
“That’s pretty cool to see how people will band together to do that,” said Carlat.
‘You Go Around It'
Adam Rothbart, owner of Barnum Construction, had two blades and two bulldozers carving fire-break lines around the House Draw Fire on Friday, plus two water-tanker trucks.
His employees have been running equipment while he’s been driving a blade.
U.S. Forest Service personnel have been directing him where to draw lines, but mostly he just knows — after 25 years in construction and the recurring need to fight fires in a dry state.
“You see a fire and you try to get out and around it, and try to cut it off,” said Rothbart.
Burnout
The roughly 18,000-acre Remington Fire in northeast Sheridan County has sprinted 14 miles northward and plunged into Montana, the Tongue River Fire District announced Friday afternoon.
“Fire made huge runs throughout the day and night,” reads a statement by Tongue River Fire. “Pushing … well into Montana and still on the go. Very active nighttime Fire behavior.”
The crews lit their own fires to burn off grasses and starve the fire, according to a Friday morning post by Goose Valley Fire Department. Different crews in Sheridan County had to cover each other, to give firefighters fleeting rests.
A brush truck was monitoring a dozer line on the southern flank of the fire as well, the posts says.
In northwestern Wyoming near the Fremont County and Teton County line, the Fish Creek Fire reached nearly 10,000 acres Friday, so the fire crews in that timber area also were building their own burn lines to protect Togwotee Pass, the incident public information officer said. The pass was closed Thursday evening. Personnel closed it again Friday afternoon and night for the burnout operations.
That method is handy in craggy terrain where bulldozers can’t travel to carve fire break lines.
Water Trucks
Alongside county and federal fire crews, Campbell County residents with water sprayers to spare are using them to fight two large fires there, state Sen. Eric Barlow and longtime Campbell County rancher told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.
He’s been out with his own sprayer-outfitted pickup, which he said has enough pressure to douse flames. For him it’s a repeat: he was also fighting flames off a neighbor’s home in late July, then helped douse a smaller fire after that.
“I’m just like a lot of homeowners and landowners, you want to do the best you can to protect yourself, your neighbors. So when the neighbor calls and says ‘I need help,’ you go,” said Barlow.
The fire is still about 10 miles from his own place, he said.
Barlow said firefighters and volunteers have acted valiantly to protect people’s homes, especially from the more residentially-packed 30,000-acre Flat Rock Fire in western Campbell County. Farther north, the Constitution Fire is at about 15,000 acres, though not as densely populated.
On Thursday night, local construction companies sent out full tankers of water so people could refill their sprayers and keep going, he said. Construction companies also sent out road graders to cut lines ahead of homes, haystacks and Interstate 90 just to the south, he said.
But on Wednesday when the fire was first reported, the flames were in control.
“The wind shifted early on, and there was literally nothing you could do,” he said. “We were just trying to get out of the way, that’s how fast it was moving.”
If the high winds had kept driving the fire as quickly as they did then, the result would have been “catastrophic — and I don’t use that term lightly,” he said.
Barlow said he deeply appreciates the firefighters on duty and the many local volunteers.
Heavy construction equipment is put into play fighting the House Draw Fire in northern Wyoming. (Courtesy Loren Carlat) 
View of the House Creek Fire from the seat of a construction rig. (Courtesy Loren Carlat) 
Scene from the House Creek Fire burning in Johnson County, Wyoming. (Courtesy Loren Carlat)
Winter Pasture
Quint Gonzales credited the fire break lines Friday with saving his ranch off Tipperary Road in Johnson County, near the House Draw Fire.
Personal weed sprayers also helped.
He lost most of his winter pasture and is in for a lot of feed expense, but he didn’t lose any cows. The wind shifted from a hard southward blast to a northwesterly wind on Wednesday, so that the fire narrowly missed his house, he said.
“(We) got enough fire lines cut in, we kinda got it shut down,” said Gozales, who brought out his 200-gallon weed sprayer, full of water. “A ton of local neighbors and other ranchers and friends were just out here doing all they could, with spraying units and shovels and everything.”
Gonsalez didn’t lose any outbuildings either, though he lost fence lines.
Yeah But That’s Not The Worry
While Rothbart was out cutting lines, he saw lots of dead antelope. Sometimes he’d see 20 to 30 of them piled up against the corner of a fence they couldn’t jump, burnt to death.
He said he hadn’t seen a single dead cow, though he’s heard they’re out there.
Phil Rutt, of Triple Three Outfitters in Buffalo, said the fires are bound to degrade this year’s hunting season, but that is not his worry right now.
“We’re going to make do with what we’re going to make do – but these (ranchers) are losing everything they have,” said Rutt. “The most important thing is these folks finding feed for their cattle and fixing fence, and not losing their houses.”
Meanwhile, On Togwotee Pass
As the fire continues to burn on Fish Creek, residents have begun to evacuate their homes and lodges. Dubois resident Jim Ligori’s family has owned a cabin in the Pinnacle Heights Summer Homes since the mid-80s.
“It's a place where I've spent a lot of my childhood,” Ligori told Cowboy State Daily, “On Tuesday, we went up there and started pulling valuables and sentimental items out of it in preparation for the Fish Creek fire.”
According to Ligori, the Forest Service had engine and hand crews patrolling the Pinnacle Heights cabins which they had already cleared of dead trees. Hoses snaked around the cabins and excess debris swept away. Heavy smoke hung in the air and the Pinnacles were nearly invisible through the haze.
“It was kind of ominous. The dark, orange, yellow light that you get from heavy wildfire smoke,” Ligori said. “It's sad. It's been ready to go for many years. The pine beetle and just the thick old growth have always been challenging to the Forest Service. I think they're doing a good job trying to clear some of the logging and the timber ground but I just don't think there's enough people or resources for them to do what they really should have been doing.”
Ligori is the executive director of Teton Valley Ranch Camp and although the camp itself is not threatened, they made the decision to send home a group of 100 middle school girls from Jackson a day early. The campers made it over the Teton Pass before it was closed last night at 5 p.m.
Ligori is now turning his attention to helping those who evacuated from the fire and is currently housing both staff and horses from the historic 100-year-old Brooks Lodge.
“I've seen a lot of great community response in Dubois. People volunteering trailers for livestock or places for people to spend a couple of nights,” Ligori said. “That kind of community support in just a small town Wyoming.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com and Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
