Just as wildland firefighters seemed to be getting a good handle on a nearly 300-acre fire burning just outside the southwest boundary of a closed Devils Tower National Monument, another fire has erupted to the southeast.
The Newton Fire burning just east of Wyoming Highway 24 southeast of Devils Tower was discovered at about 1:15 p.m. Saturday, and had grown to an estimated 200 acres in a couple of hours, the National Interagency Fire Center and Crook County Emergency Management report.
Asked for an update on the wildfire situation around Devils Tower — which has closed the monument for much of Saturday and all of Sunday — county Emergency Management Coordinator Ed Robinson was blunt.
“It sucks,” he said.
“We get one fire almost contained, and then we’re fighting another one now, too,” he told Cowboy State Daily from the scene of the Newton Fire on Sunday.
Although the 282-acre Left Creek Fire burning to the west is “not as bad as it was,” Robinson said that having another wildfire so close to the monument’s boundary “certainly doesn’t help any.”
While state forestry and National Park Service officials told Cowboy State Daily earlier on Sunday that they would evaluate the potential of reopening Devils Tower later in the afternoon, the new fire takes that option off the table, Robinson said.
Highway 24 has been closed from the “Y,” or where it branches off Highway 14 north toward Devils Tower, and all residents in the vicinity have been placed on “set” status to be prepared to evacuate, according to Crook County Emergency Management.
The Newton Fire also will slow some of the progress at the Left Creek Fire as some personnel and resources are diverted to try to keep the new wildfire from getting out of control, Robinson said.
For state Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, whose family homestead contains part of the Left Creek Fire, another blaze sparking up so close to the tower is another gut-punch for local firefighters and residents.
“That’s out by the Tower Cemetery,” he said. “It’s a pretty tough deal, and that one’s probably going to burn up to the rimrock at the highway (24), and they’ll make a stand there at the highway, it sounds like.”
KOA Still Open
A little farther north and next to the monument, Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA campground remains open, and is hosting the basecamp for firefighters working both fires.
“Yup, we’re open and full business ahead,” said worker at the KOA who identified himself as “just Chris.”
“We’re catching the breaks, because we are just north of the fires,” he said. “So, we’re open. Everything is good on our end here. That’s what I keep answering phone calls about all day.”
He said the KOA staff has also helped feed the wildland firefighting crews as they go in and out of the field to work the fires.
“Last night, we stayed up late and were the drop-off point for food, and (owner) Andrea Driskill opened up the kitchen,” Chris said. “We made sandwiches and the go-lunches, and had breakfast waiting for them.”
Not only is the KOA campground open, it’s continuing a long-running tradition of nightly screenings of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
“Yup, ‘Close Encounters’ every night, 8 o’clock,” Chris said.
How We Got Here
The Left Creek Fire was discovered at about 10:40 a.m. Saturday, and grew quickly in hot and dry conditions in northeast Wyoming, with temperatures hitting 99 degrees Saturday, the National Weather Service reports.
Believed to have been caused by lightning, Ogden Driskill said the wildfire was on the fence line of his land and another ranch owner — and he was struck with fear when he first saw the smoke.
“It was really scary, because that’s some of the grass we depend on in the fall and winter,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Sunday morning while meeting with state and National Park Service officials.
“In my opinion, it without a doubt could’ve been a 5,000-acre-plus fire — or more,” Driskill said, adding that quick and precise work from the more than 100 firefighters on the scene have kept the wildfire in check.
“We literally watched helicopters put out crown fires all day long,” he said. “They kept it in the original line all day long (Saturday), and the ground crews kept it from spreading on the ground.”
That work Saturday has kept the fire at an estimated 282 acres, said Dick Terry, said district forester for Wyoming State Forestry.
While he wouldn’t say the fire is contained, he said he’s confident it’s basically under control.
“We’ve got fire line around most of it, but it’s indirect,” he said. “It’s still small and not contained just because we’ve got the east side with a shaky line until we get a little bit of a handle on that.”
The fire has so far also stayed outside the boundary of the national monument, Terry said.
“I would assume it’s lightning,” he added about the suspected cause of the fire. “But, I haven’t seen the start of it yet. But it’s 99% sure it’s lightning.”
No structures are in the area and he put his confidence at “about 80%” that the monument could reopen sometime Sunday.
That was before the Newton Fire was discovered later.
National Park Service Powder River Group Superintendent Dustin Sene agrees, while also praising the work of local agencies and landowners for helping keep the fire small and relatively in check.
“They did a great job getting ahead and getting the park evacuated,’ he said. “It’s an incredible interagency effort, as well as the local community here.
“Everybody worked well together and we’re starting conversations about when the park will get opened again.”
He also thanked the local KOA campground, which is just outside the monument’s boundary and remains open, for feeding firefighters over the weekend.
Kink In The Plans
The fire and Devils Tower closure have also put a kink into the vacation plans of weekend visitors and bikers starting to make their way to the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
“Some travel moments write themselves, and some are actively on fire,” posted John and Jenny of the “No Rules Just Roam” travel platform. “The whole scene looking like something out of a movie.”
“We are staying near Devils Tower National Monument and found out at the entrance that a Level 3 wildfire had closed he entire monument and evacuated everyone, including the staff, due to imminent danger,” the couple reported. “This is genuinely serious and we hope everyone got out safely.”
While reporting updates on the fire, they also posted a video of a camper walking through the campground with Devils Tower and smoke from the fire rising eerily in the background.
“Scrolling — Not the news. Not the fire updates,” John and Jenny posted, adding the woman was watching “reels” like nothing was happening.
“I looked at the fire. I looked at her. I looked at the fire again,” the report continues. “She did not look up.”
150 Firefighters
Meanwhile, wildfire resources were quickly marshalled to battle the fire, the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports.
While the fire grew to nearly 300 acres in about 12 hours, “progress has been made,” Crook County Emergency Management reported Saturday. So far, “150 firefighters are currently on this fire, along with four large air tankers, two SEATs (single-engine air tankers), and four helicopters.”
That number was adjusted to more than 100 on Sunday.
Local residents and agencies also have responded to assist.
“Everyone should stay away from the national park and don’t drive in, because they are watching and will ticket anyone violating the closure,” the agency said.
That closure will keep visitors like Bryan Abernathy away, who is part of a crew of bikers making a pilgrimage to the Sturgis rally.
“Whole crew rolled to Devils Tower today,” he posted Saturday to his Sturgis SD 2026 diary on Facebook. “The actual park was closed due to a forest fire. Got to see airplanes and helicopters dropping water.”
This isn’t the first time America’s first national monument has been closed because of a wildfire.
In May 2013, it was closed when what was supposed to be a 300-acre prescribed burn got out of control in high winds and ignited a spot fire in about the same area as the Left Creek Fire, according to the National Park Service.
That fire also burned some power lines that left a couple dozen homesteads in the area without electricity.
Meanwhile, Another Fire
The Left Creek Fire isn’t the only serious wildfire being fought in northern Wyoming.
Two counties to the east, a Wyoming Type 3 incident management team was called in to help fight a fire in the Clearmont area of Sheridan County, which has ballooned to more than 7,200 acres since it was started by lightning on Friday, according to the Type 3 team.
“A lightning storm moved across the region starting multiple fires north of Clearmont, Wyoming, in Sheridan County,” according to a report from the Type 3 team and its commander, Jon Warder.
“Weather and fuel conditions led to the fire quickly growing in size,” the report says. “While structures were threatened, none have been lost so far.”
The NIFC reports the Lumin Fire is about 5% contained, and that terrain and fuels are making the wildfire difficult to fight. As of Sunday evening, that containment figure hadn’t been updated.
While he was at the Devils Tower site Sunday, Terry said he also had been checking in on the Lumin Fire.
Crews there have made considerable progress on getting more control and protecting buildings in the area, he said.
“It kind of sounded like they got some burnouts completed and, hopefully, they’ll be winding down on that,” he said.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
