Summer 2012 was quickly becoming the hottest and driest part of one of the hottest and driest years in Wyoming’s recorded history. Wildfires ravaged forests and grasslands in nearly every portion of the state. Temperatures were in the triple digits. Portions of northeast Wyoming hadn’t seen significant amounts of rain in months.
Then a damaged power pole fell on a tree in the Black Hills, and embers tumbled to the ground. Strong winds fanned the sparks that spread into a fire that burned hot and moved quick. More than 500 firefighters battled the growing blaze. As it tore south, officials put Newcastle – a town of 3,400 nestled in the juniper and ponderosa pines at the base of the Black Hills – on evacuation notice. Conditions were changing every hour.
“It was a busy summer, and resources were really thin. They tried to make fire lines, but embers blew across,” said Dick Terry, Wyoming State Forestry’s northeast district forester. “It was pretty much out of control for a full week.”
But as the blaze moved toward Newcastle, it ran into a fire break, an area thinned of underbrush and crowded trees to help in exactly that situation. The distance between treetops prevented flames from jumping from one dry branch to another. The lack of low bushes kept the fire from licking up into the forest ceiling.
It gave firefighters enough time to build a line and burn the fire back. Then the wind switched direction, and Newcastle residents breathed a collective, if cautious, sigh of relief.
From the Casper Star Tribune: https://trib.com/lifestyles/recreation/as-money-for-forest-work-dwindles-chances-for-bigger-wildfires/article_28339abb-85d3-5c1f-b138-eaa44b70b6dd.html