To find updates on fires in the state, check out WPR’s Wildfire Info and Resources page.
Wildfires have burned homes and killed cattle this summer. Just this week, several new starts sparked evacuation orders in Campbell and Albany counties, and crews still have their hands full with the Fish Creek Fire on Togwotee Pass. Wyoming Public Radio’s Nicky Ouellet recently caught up with Jerod DeLay. He’s the state’s fire management officer. They talked about how this year stacks up and what we can expect for the rest of the season.
Editor’s note: This story has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Nicky Ouellet: So far this year, the governor's office says we've seen 600 fires in the state, about 630, 000 acres burned. How does this compare to recent years?
Jerod DeLay: Just with my short time on state forestry and 25 years with the Forest Service in Wyoming, I don't remember really seeing, just that volume of acres. I don't remember having a year quite like this. The number of fires is probably not so far out of the norm. But realize that there are probably a lot of fires that just haven't been recorded or reported yet. They're just waiting on that until they get time to be able to do that.
Now we're having a lot of grassland fires and brushlands, some timber and stuff that are impacting a lot of land ownership as well. It's just a lot more private land fires. It's just abnormal for that number of private land fires.
NO: Ag land has been particularly hard hit with these really fast moving, scary grass fires. I'm curious: What have you seen on the ground? Where are the worst impacts?
JD: You can go back to early, end of February, part of March, when we had the large fires just outside Cheyenne. They impacted some of those smaller HOAs [homeowner associations] and little subdivisions on the outskirts of Cheyenne.
But then you also look at the large fires up in northeast Wyoming. At that time of year, that's a big impact to those range lands up there in private lands. There's not going to be a probably a lot of moisture ‘til the snow that to really grow that stuff back, regenerate the grass. So that's impacting those producers up there as well, quite heavily, from winter range to fences to everything that they lost up there.
NO: Are you expecting that we're going to see fire season, specifically grass fires, continue into the fall and winter? I know we've had quite a few number of new starts, even this week.
JD: Most likely, just for the amount of fuel out there, and we just haven't had a lot of moisture recently. In the southeast part of the state, Cheyenne, we've done fairly well over August. But you drive around the rest of the state, you can tell where it gets a lot drier.
I know there's some predictions out there with some upcoming weather and some fronts coming through here in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully that gives us some reprieve and we just don't get the dry wind that we could and the warm temperatures that come before the fronts as well.
NO: Have you been able to access the kinds of resources that are needed to fight these fires? I'm thinking both equipment and people.
JD: We get pretty stretched, pretty thin across the state, but we've been kind of lucky to be able to get what we need, when the need arises. The Rocky Mountain Area Coordinating Center in Lakewood [CO] has done a pretty good job of prepositioning resources in Wyoming and the BLM, Forest Service has been good about bringing in some additional prepositioned aircraft as well that in Wyoming everybody has access to.
NO: That's great. I know a lot of initial attack is done sometimes just by people who are just on hand, have equipment. But I also know that fire departments in the state have been having a really hard time staffing and finding volunteers. How is that affecting communities’ abilities to protect themselves?
JD: There's definitely an impact to those fire districts and counties, and even with the amount of starts that we've had, it seems like they've come in clusters. We get real busy for a week or two, and then there's a little bit of a lull. It's taxing to these departments and counties as well.
In Wyoming, it's a pretty small group of folks that do a lot. Between our county cooperators and our federal partners, it's a small group. So it's pretty important that we all work together. The color of the land on the map doesn't matter too much. Everybody goes where there's a fire, where it's a need. Everybody just kind of shows up and gets to work.
NO: I'm curious what you think about how fire adapted are Wyomingites. Do we have a good culture of living with wildfire?
JD: Historically, it's always been part of it. You can talk to a lot of the folks that have been in Wyoming that have been on fire departments or ranchers that have done it for a long time. That's just part of the culture and part of that comes with the territory.
Even new folks that move into the state from out of state, I think they're starting to understand that it's part of it. Especially if you come from an area that may not have a lot of wildland fire, moving in, buy your chunk of Wyoming that you want to get away from everybody. You learn pretty quickly that it's part of the deal.
NO: With all of the fire that has happened on private lands this year, what would you say to homeowners, landowners who are interested in doing some work to protect their homes and lessen impacts?
JD: Reach out to your district with Wyoming State Forestry and they could do a site visit and see what can help be done.
NO: What would that work potentially look like?
JD: Depending on what it is, what grants could be available, see if we could partner with other entities or other landowners and stuff to do a bigger area maybe. Just developing those plans and seeing how that work can get done, or whether it's contracting out to somebody or, depending on the area, the homeowner may be able to do it. It's just figuring out the right tool to use.
NO: Is there anything that I haven't asked that you wanted to talk about?
JD: Especially this time of year, when we come into fall and it's dry and you'd have those windier days, just be aware of what you're doing outside. If you're mowing, if you're doing any work out there welding or something. Or even just general recreation. Especially during hunting season, [if] you have a fire, just be aware of your surroundings and make sure you spend a little bit of time, a little extra work, making sure your fire's out and pretty cold before you leave.
