Since this story was published on August 14, fires in the Bighorn Basin have continued to spread rapidly. The Red Canyon Fire outside of Thermopolis has now consumed an estimated 50,000 acres.
The Sleeper Ranch Fire in the Meeteetse area has now burned 18,298 acres, while the Spring Creek Fire outside Ten Sleep has burned an estimated 2,322 acres.
A series of lightning-sparked wildfires in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin sent authorities scrambling Wednesday and Thursday, with one fire outside Thermopolis exploding and burning 20,000 remote acres.
The Red Canyon Fire prompted an evacuation order for an unknown number of rural homes in the area.
According to James Coates, secretary of the Thermopolis Volunteer Fire Department, the fire was burning in a sparsely populated area of grass and scrub brush well east of Thermopolis.
According to Coates, a federal incident management team is on its way to take command of the firefighting effort, and the fire is currently being managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management.
The Red Canyon Fire has prompted a significant airborne response, Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris told WyoFile on Thursday. Helicopters, large air tankers, and single-engine air tankers are all working to halt the flames’ spread.
Two other fires, one northeast of Meeteetse and one southeast of Ten Sleep, were also active and causing concern Thursday, according to Norris. The Spring Creek Fire in the Ten Sleep area is estimated to be 1,000 acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center’s online map.
However, Norris stated that the fire has been extremely active. A photo taken Wednesday night by one of her colleagues and provided to WyoFile showed flames spreading along a timbered ridge.
A state incident command team will manage this fire and others in the area, according to Norris.
The Sleeper Ranch Fire, located northeast of Meeteetse, also covered approximately 1,000 acres, according to the NIFC map.
The sudden rash of blazes follows a relatively quiet July on the wildfire front, though the Bighorn Basin has already seen some major conflagrations.
“Fire season is here,” Norris stated. “It showed up over the course of the last couple of days.”
Norris urged people to take extra precautions not to start new fires while officials work to control those that are already burning. Wyoming is extremely dry, she stated. “We are very dry and we need to be very aware of the fire risk because while we’re managing these fires we don’t need any others.”
According to Norris, lightning storms sparked up to 20 fires across the state on Wednesday, with firefighters rushing to control the blazes in Crook, Campbell, Johnson, Converse, Uinta, Lincoln, and Sublette counties. The fires in the Bighorn Basin are the most concerning.
“Some of these fires, depending on where they grow or how they grow, they could go for weeks if they get a strong hold,” Norris pointed out. “This is a really critical time.”
Wyoming experienced a record-breaking and state-bank-draining fire season in 2024. Wildfires raged across 840,000 acres of grasslands and mountains across the state, surpassed only by the infamous 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park. In late August, four large fires in the northeastern part of the state consumed roughly half of the acreage from the previous year.
Wyoming’s fires are part of a larger blaze that is raging throughout the mountain west. New wildfires are burning in Montana, Utah, and Idaho, while the Lee Fire outside Meeker in Colorado has consumed more than 127,000 acres, according to InciWeb.
“The rest of the West is experiencing the same pattern at the same time,” Norris informed reporters.
