From time to time, this only big fire of the year has cut off the remaining access to the north of Yellowstone Park-
Here is Arnica fire incident page. The fire grew from 4 to over 1600 acres in 4 days. When the fire blocks the road, due to the closure of the other road to the north of the Park — the closure between Madison Jct. and Norris, there is no easy access to the north of Yellowstone Park if you are to the south.
Next Tuesday could be a bad fire day but then also the end of the fire season as a strong and cold front with possible snow will blow in. Meanwhile warm weather.
Currently the southern half of Yellowstone and both sides of the Tetons and points south are filled with smoke. See my earlier post of Sept. 23 (and updated Sept. 26).
Arnica fire on Sept. 24. Source. Mt. Washburn web cam. Public domain
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
New fire in BTNF today too..
http://gacc.nifc.gov/egbc/dispatch/wy-tdc/index.html
Arnica shut down the grand loop again today:
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1901/
Went by the Gros Ventre fire today- it was burned to the road at Arnica CG. Ditch Creek fire seems stable.
Bearpaw bay fire is MUCH bigger today, now 2,250 acres, area around it is totally closed, looks like Spalding bay road is burned. Should be interesting for bear viewing in the future, it was always so good there…it will be again eventually.
http://gacc.nifc.gov/egbc/dispatch/wy-tdc/information/current-fires/BearpawBay_progression_8x11_26sep.pdf
Third Creek fire on the otherhand seems stable.
Dont know much about the Alpine and Pinedale ones.
Thank you for posting these links. One of them says the prescribed fire near Alpine, the Bradley Mountain Fire, “started September 23 and the 4,610 acre project was completed September 25. Fire crews will remain working in the area but are no longer actively igniting. Residual smoke may be seen up to two weeks.” [emphasis mine]
USFS folks here in Calif are now admitting that they misread the danger of the 160,000 acre Station Fire in SoCal and did not fight it agressively enough when it started. Now most of the Angeles National Forest is toast. We will never know, but I suspect budget cuts are effecting USFS fire fighting decisions in the early stages of any fire these days.
http://www.geomac.gov/
This is an interesting web site for monitoring fires….