There are a couple of fire updates to note this morning -

Management of the Columbine Fire near Sylvan pass has been turned over this morning officially to the Northern Rockies Type 2 Incident Team managed by Mark Grant.  As noted in a post yesterday, they are setting up their command center near Fishing Bridge, and worked the fire pretty aggressively yesterday (here’s a quote from a Park news release this morning)-

Once again Saturday, fire crews used helicopter bucket drops and retardant drops from tanker planes to slow the advance of the fire. Lighter winds resulted in somewhat less active fire behavior and a slower forward advance up the Columbine Creek drainage than experienced on Friday. A small, six acre spot fire has established itself in the headwaters of the Middle Creek drainage. The Columbine Fire is estimated at 2,500 acres.

There is another new fire in the Park, east of the South Entrance, labelled the Huckleberry Fire.  They dropped smoke jumpers and were using air tankers for suppression yesterday, and data about burn size has not been released as of 8:15 this morning as I write this post.  We’re interested as we have an upper Snake trip planned, both for fun and for research on a book we’re planning to write. 

Yellowstone does average 22 lightning sparked fires per year;  the Park has had 18 fires thus far this season - lightning and 5 human caused.  We’ll track the fire data and keep you updated.

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