A 10,000-gallon tank sits 5 to 6 miles southwest of the Elk Fire in a flat area. It’s a mobile retardant base where 527,000 gallons of retardant has so far been mixed to fight a fire that has consumed nearly 90,000 acres of land so far and is continuing to grow.
“It takes 24 hours to move one of those things if we have to pack it up and move it,” Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team’s Air Operations Section Chief Dennis Morton told Cowboy State Daily on Saturday. “So, we tried to put it as far out in front of the head of the fire as we could. And then again, the fire can burn past it a ways and then we’ll still have coverage before we have to move it.”
The Elk Fire is not the largest wildfire going right now in the United States. It’s the fourth largest, but Morton said he’s had unprecedented access to aerial assets for the fire, which is threatening several rural northern Wyoming towns that lie at the foot of the Bighorns, starting with Parkman and Dayton in the north, and running on down to Big Horn and Story in the south.
It’s at 27% contained, down from the 32% contained that was estimated Saturday. Some of that can be attributed to new growth in the fire’s acreage, which is now pushing 90,000 acres. Weekend firing operations, to build containment features in the south, are part of that growth.
There are 13 aircraft in all assigned to the Elk Fire, 10 of which are helicopters. Two are fixed-wing air cat platforms and the last is an Unmanned Aerial System — a drone — that is capable of several things, including infrared scans and dropping incendiary devices, nicknamed “dragon eggs,” to do strategic burning.
“I haven’t had this many aircraft assigned to an incident in a long time,” Morton said. “To give an example, when my team was in Region Six over in Washington, we had a 50,000-plus-acre fire and in our tour there, I never had one aircraft assigned the whole time. They wouldn’t give me any aircraft, they would just give us stuff to use during the day, and it went home at night. Not like here, where I’ve got everything I need.”
Six of the 10 helicopters assigned to the Elk Fire are what are called Type 1 helicopters. These are the largest, fastest flying, most expensive helicopters around. They can typically carry 2,000 gallons of water or retardant in a single trip.
“Four of those are tanked aircraft,” Morton said. “They have snorkels, and they can pull water from much shallower water sources instead of having to have a bucket underneath the aircraft. The tanked aircraft work a lot better with our mobile retardant base as well.”
Instead of having to hit a 14-foot circle — essentially a bullseye — with a giant bucket, the tanked aircraft just have to fit a tiny little snorkel into the middle of that 14-foot-circle. They can then suck up water or retardant into their internal tank.
‘Pissing Into The Wind’
Retardant is being delivered to the mix tank out in the forest by semitrucks on flatbeds, based on orders made 24 hours in advance.
Keeping the flow steady — without over-ordering — is a constant challenge.
“We have to make sure we stay on top of the amount we have, the amount we are using, and then anticipate the future use when ordering,” Morton said.
Fire retardant chemicals work by coating fuel with chemicals that greatly reduce flammability. Typically, they’re used to build fire breaks, but they can also put some fires out — as long as those fires are not too intense.
Retardant isn’t a silver bullet, Morton explained. Fire can still chew through it, particularly if it’s as intense as the Elk Fire.
“It doesn’t work when a fire’s got 300-foot plane lengths and Mother Nature’s pushing it 5, 6 mph,” he said. “If you’re trying to throw retard lines out in front of that, you’re just pissing in the wind.”
That’s exactly what used to happen in the early days of firefighting, Morton added. He’s been involved in fighting fire with aerial assets for 38 years.
“We’ve gotten a lot better these days,” he said. “Used to be we thought that if retardants slammed into Mother Earth, that’s the most effective use of it. Now we’ve understood that you need to drop it at such a height that it falls like rain.
“That coats fuels more evenly and provides a bigger benefit than 2,000 gallons slamming into the ground in one big blob.”
A bucket of retardant dangling from a helicopter is used to drop product onto the Elk Fire. (Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team) 
Red Grade Road is being prepared as a fire stop for the southern advancement of the Elk Fire. (Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team) 
Red Grade Road is being prepared as a fire stop for the southern advancement of the Elk Fire. (Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team) 
Strategic burning efforts meant to slow the progress of the Elk Fire. (Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team) 
Strategic burning efforts meant to slow the progress of the Elk Fire. (Rocky Mountain Area Complex Incident Management Team)
Almost 4 Million Gallons Of Water Used So Far
Regardant isn’t the only thing being used to slow the Elk Fire’s growth and try to keep it inside a containment line. Water has been used in even greater amounts.
So far, aerial assets have delivered 3.9 million gallons of water from various aerial assets.
Water played a particularly important role over the weekend in squelching a breakout fire that had started because of some spotting over a dozer line in the northwest corner of the Elk Fire.
Aerial assets and foot patrols conducted on a regular basis caught the spotting quickly. Two helicopters were on the scene between 15 to 30 minutes after the breakout was spotted, bombing it with water.
“They smashed it,” Morton said. “And then the ground folks got there and got it lined and got it all taken care of.”
One of the most common questions Morton and other firefighters hear is why not just put the Elk Fire out altogether. The answer is the fire’s sheer size. Firefighters have used 3.9 million gallons of water and a little over half a million gallons of retardant so far, and that’s not even close to enough to put out 90,000 acres of white hot fire.
“We could win a battle or two,” Rocky Mountain Area Team’s Field Operations Chief Adam Ziegler told Cowboy State Daily. “But we’d lose the war because it would take off in other directions.”
At any one given time, Morton has enough aerial assets to put 10,000 gallons of retardant or water up in the air, and 13 aircraft that can take off in all different directions.
Their speed is contingent, though, on having a no-fly zone.
“For the most part, we haven’t had any problem where with drone incursions or pilots flying into the GFR, the temporary flight restriction box that we put around the incident to keep general aviation out,” he said. “Usually, people are flying drones all over the place. But there’s a simple rule here, if you fly, we can’t, it’s that simple.”
The focus Monday for aerial assets, with all the prep work in the Burgess Junction area complete, Morton said, has been the preparations in the south along Red Grade Road, where a “catcher’s mitt” is being constructed that will turn the Elk Fire back in on itself.
Along Red Grade Road, crews are using feller bunchers, masticators, and other heavy equipment to clear vegetation, creating more defensible lines for strategic firing operations. Structure protection crews on the ground are also working near homes and properties in the Poverty Flats area, clearing flammable debris, as well as setting up ponds, pumps, and sprinkler systems.
Bringing Containment Lines South
The work is designed to extend the containment of Elk Fire to the south and prevent it from coming down the mountainside to hit the communities of Story and Big Horn. Containment has already been created for the cities of Parkman and Dayton, though patrols there continue to ensure there’s no spotting across containment lines.
Morton has some assets dropping water, some dropping retardant, and others doing recon missions. At night, the UAS is being used for back-burning operations, dropping incendiary devices nicknamed dragon eggs.
Their actual name is PSD, for plastic sphere dispenser, and they are polystyrene balls holding flammable materials such as potassium permanganate. They’re used for strategic burning in hard-to-access areas and can be dropped with pinpoint accuracy.
Thursday night, that caused a huge orange column of fire that could be seen from miles away. While it had many concerned the Elk Fire was taking off again, it was actually a good sign in this case.
It was caused by the strategic fire running up to meet the main fire, crashing into it like a wave. The energy from that is what created the dramatic column of fire that could be seen all around the Big Horns.
Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
