As the Foot Creek Fire burns across 683 acres near Buffalo, the U.S. Forest Service is once again asking pilots to stay out of the airspace above it.
Sara Evans Kirol, public-affairs specialist for the Bighorn National Forest, told Cowboy State Daily that two incidents of unauthorized planes flying over the area disrupted firefighting operations over the weekend.
"We were grounded a little over an hour for each instance,” Evans Kirol said.
She described both as low-flying, privately owned planes that made several passes over the area. Crews couldn’t get a tail number on either one, which Evans Kirol said makes them nearly impossible to identify.
“We are not doing any investigations,” Evans Kirol said. “We reported it to the FAA and we’re trying to educate and prevent it from happening again.”
Over the weekend and continuing Monday, the Forest Service has had drones in the air to map and photograph the sprawling area, which helps crews plan next their steps in stopping the blaze, Evans Kirol said.
A low-flying plane crashing into one of those drones would be a major financial loss for the agency, but she said that’s the least of its worries.
“It could cause a fatal crash and not only impact the pilot and whoever their passengers are but also impact people on the ground or homes on the ground,” Evans Kirol said. “It’s a very serious issue.”
‘Looky Loo’
The first plane passed over the fire Saturday. The FAA subsequently issued a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR), and another plane passed over the fire Sunday.
Robert Gill, airport manager of the Sheridan County Airport, told Cowboy State Daily the Foot Creek area is normally unrestricted airspace. Any pilot taking a plane up should have checked for and seen the TFR notice, he said, but it’s possible whoever flew over the wildfire missed it.
“There’s a lot of smaller aircraft in the area,” Gill said. “I like to think the best and that somebody probably wasn’t aware that the TFR was out.”
Brian Granger, airport manager of the Johnson County Airport, told Cowboy State Daily that even if the pilot saw the TFR, the flight might not have broken any rules.
When the first plane passed over the fire Saturday, Granger said, there was no TFR in place, only a different advisory called a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM).
“NOTAM doesn’t prevent pilots from flying in that area,” Granger said. “It just advises them to be cautious in that area.”
Even with the TFR in place, the restriction only extends to 9,500 feet, and Granger said a plane flying above that height can still look like it’s low to the ground.
“I’m guessing they didn’t do anything wrong, but it might have appeared that they did,” Granger said, adding that it was his own read of the situation and not an official determination.
Pilots flying from one airport to another don’t typically make several passes over the same spot, as both planes did, but Granger said that isn’t abnormal when a plane is up for a different reason.
“Particularly if they were just looky loo, just trying to see and look at what was going on,” Granger said.
‘Burning Hard’
Greg Walker, a resident of the seven-home subdivision in the fire’s path, didn’t need a plane to see what was happening.
“The fire burned right up to my house,” Walker told Cowboy State Daily. “It went up into the trees above my house and it’s been burning there since the first day.”
Johnson County Sheriff-Elect Adrian Keeler told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that residents of the small subdivision were briefly evacuated Thursday but have since been allowed to return.
“The Sheriff’s Office went to every home in that immediate vicinity,” Keeler said.
When the evacuation order came, Walker said he and his family left as instructed. They returned home as soon as they were allowed but have stayed on high alert.
“We are prepared to leave for sure,” Walker said. “We feel fairly safe here because they did a lot of back-burning around us.”
His main concern is that the direction of the fire can change quickly.
“With the fire burning in the timber, we know that can go just about anywhere with the wind,” Walker said. “We’ve been very, very lucky over the last few days with very little to no wind.”
Walker said he watched the fire grow from small, scattered flames around his home into a bigger blaze that stayed intense through Monday morning.
“This morning it was really burning hard,” Walker said. "But it is not burning like that now.”
The Foot Creek Fire was reported midday Thursday about 12 miles west of Buffalo in Johnson County, and the Forest Service estimated it at 100 acres by that afternoon.
By Friday, the fire had grown to 413 acres with no containment, and crews had put dozer lines in place while focusing on firefighter safety and protecting structures.
By Monday, the fire had reached 683 acres, according to the Forest Service’s latest update. Containment was 36% Monday morning but had climbed to 66% by the afternoon, with about 65 personnel assigned.
The cause of the fire is “human caused.” Evans Kirol said an investigation has been conducted, but results will be slow to come out.
“The investigations take a while to finalize,” Evans Kirol said. “It could take a few months.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
