Dollar Lake Fire Takes A Run At Squaretop, Historic GP Ranch

Those in western Wyoming worried about the Dollar Lake Fire making a run at the state’s famous landmark Squaretop Mountain don’t have to worry any longer.

That’s because it happened.

The fire, which has grown to more than 19,000 acres and is 39% contained, made an aggressive move along the Green River toward the foot of Squaretop over the weekend and nearly straight on at Porcupine Pass.

The flames also came within yards of the historic GP Bar Ranch and the stone house that still sits on the property.

It’s now owned by the U.S. Forest Service, but for retired criminal law attorney Stan Decker Cannon, it’s his family’s legacy homestead.

“I was raised up there as a kid, my brother Kim and I,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.

His grandfather, Stan Decker, bought the property in the late 1920s and developed it into a dude ranch that operated into the 1960s, when he sold it to the Forest Service.

Seeing a photo of the flames burning down the hillside toward the old stone house was chilling, Decker Cannon said.

“It just shows you how much destruction fire can do,” he said. “It’s so mammoth that I’m amazed at the guys being able to keep it from getting into the campground and what’s left of the ranch.”

He said the wildfire crews are the only reason the stone house wasn’t lost.

“The fire really tried to make a good run at it twice, and they had to beat it back twice,” he said. “The crews are just doing an amazing job.

“If they had not responded with as much effort and force as they did, who knows what would’ve happened?”

While the land will bear the scars of the Dollar Lake Fire for years, losing his family’s legacy stone house would’ve been devastating, Decker Cannon said.

“It’s become kind of an icon that the Forest Service rents out,” he said. “But good luck trying to get a reservation. It really has become and icon and a neat remembrance of what was there.”

What About Squaretop?

The rugged terrain on the western side of the river moving southeast toward Squaretop helped frame the unique peak in one of the most recognizable landscape images from Wyoming.

It was the backdrop for the last iteration of the state license plate before the new design rolled out this year.

“It’s one of my favorite places to go,” Pinedale nature photographer Dave Bell told Cowboy State Daily last week.

He’s worried wildfire will destroy that celebrated view, if it hasn’t already.

“It’s iconic and it’s a view that’s known around the world,” said Bell, who owns Wyoming Mountain Photography. “It was on the (Wyoming) license plate, and a view we’re very protective of and love.

“It kind of breaks my heart. It’s nature and that happens, but there’s nothing worse than a blackened stick forest, and I doubt it would heal in my lifetime if it all burns.”

Most of the fire’s growth since Friday has been along that southeast path reaching toward Porcupine Falls in the Bridger Wilderness, reports Wyoming Team 2, the incident management team in charge of the fire.

Wildfire crews are focusing efforts on the southern end of the fire, while the edge butting up against the Green River’s west bank seems stable, said Karsten Milek, operations manager for Team 2.

The No. 1 priority remains keeping structures and people safe, he said.

Even with the flames making a run over the weekend, there is progress, the team reports.

That big weekend run was what happens when Wyoming’s winds pick up around an active wildfire, said Tyson Finnicum, spokesman for Team 2.

“The fire progressed along the wilderness area along the Green River Lakes, then we had a day when it was windier, and it progressed quite a bit,” he said. “Since then, the fire has kind of backed up into natural features and we have not seen any growth since then.”

The fire now seems to be hemmed in by natural barriers that will help firefighters keep it more controlled, Finnicum said.

“We’re pretty comfortable with where it’s at right now, and we’ll look for opportunities with the highest probability of success to keep it there within those natural (boundaries),” he said.

Smoke And Pyrocumulus Clouds

Much of Wyoming has been waking up to what smells like a nearby campfire for several days, but what most are getting is smoke from wildfires burning in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day.

“The smoke that’s been really thick on a statewide basis, that’s been Canadian smoke,” he said. “The cold front that came in lined up perfectly to bring that right into our state. It was collecting the smoke and directing it at just the right angle to bring it in.”

Smoke and haze from the Dollar Lake Fire “is more local with its impact,” Day added.

That doesn’t mean the rest of Wyoming isn’t getting smoke from the Dollar Lake fire burning north of Pinedale and the Willow Creek Fire just south of Smoot.

“Yes, the Dollar Lake and Willow Creek fires are definitely adding smoke, but not the volume of the smoke from Canada and the Pacific Northwest,” Day said.

Along with smoke, the Dollar Lake Fire is throwing up some pretty impressive pyrocumulus clouds, Day said.

That happens when wildfires actually create their own clouds, looking like giant white pillows on top of dirty, gray smoke plumes.

“Those can happen if the conditions are right,” Day said. “If there’s moisture in the air, the heat from the fire will heat the air above it, which causes the air to rise.

“As the air rises, it cools and condenses, and you basically get a cloud.”

That pyrocumulus clouds are forming over the Dollar Lake Fire is “definitely an indication of a very active, very hot fire,” he said.

“Not every fire is going to create a pyrocumulus cloud and a lot of people will mistake a smoke plume for a cloud. If it’s very gray and dark-looking, it’s a smoke billow.”

Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.