Be careful as fire season heats up

It’s high fire season in the Rocky Mountain West, and that includes Wyoming, where multiple fires are burning, though many are largely contained.

A dry summer in some parts of the state hasn’t helped the situation, and statistics tell the tale. A story in the Riverton Ranger in mid-August reported that a USGS water gage in the Wind River showed an all-time low flow on August 13 for the years the data has been collected – 1912 to 2025 – at 12.2 cubic feet per second. The average in August is 340 CFS.

The same Ranger story reported that the Wind River Water Resource Control Board listed area drought conditions as D4, adding, “This is the most severe drought classification and signals exceptional drought conditions across our region,” quoting a Control Board public notice.

This is important in our neck of the woods, because the largest inflow for Big Horn Lake is the Wind/Big Horn River, which headwaters in Fremont County. During the winter, officials who monitor snowpack levels in regard to expected Big Horn Lake inflow mostly study the Wind River Mountains more than the Big Horns. 

Meanwhile, fires have been blowing up in different parts of the state. The Red Canyon Fire east of Thermopolis had consumed 125,000 acres as of late last week and was 90 percent contained, while the Dollar Lake Fire has burned more than 15,000 acres east of Jackson and was only 25 percent contained. The Sleeper Ranch Fire southeast of Powell has grown to nearly 21,000 acres but is 90 percent contained.

As of Wednesday, according to the Wildfire Explorer database, there were 14 active fires in Wyoming, most of them smaller and/or largely contained.

It goes without saying that recreationists must be careful as they camp, hunt or go four-wheeling. We’ve had it better in our area for precipitation this summer, but conditions are still dry and getting dryer.

Remember, last summer’s Elk Fire on the eastern side of the Big Horns didn’t start until late September and burned well into November, with 100 percent containment declared on November 14, having burned nearly 100,000 acres. The east face of the Big Horns is blackened.

Of course, many fires are started by lightning, and there’s little that can be done about that other than pounce on a fire as soon as possible after ignition. But we can all do our part by being careful as we enjoy our beautiful places.

And we also say thank you to the fire crews that fan out to battle the numerous blazes the West experiences annually.  They do tremendous, sometimes hazardous work, and we urge the powers that be at the state and federal level to give them the financial support they deserve.