Ryan Fire spreads sending smoke across South East Wyoming

Less than a week after the first community meeting at the Grand Encampment Opera House, Rocky Mountain Team Black (RMTB) and other agencies once again gathered in the historic building at 6 p.m. on Sept. 25 to provide updates to area residents on the Ryan Fire. The meeting followed exponential growth of the fire over the weekend of Sept. 22 as it threatened communities within the Skyline and Big Creek area.

"I was really hoping this meeting would have a little bit more history, we wouldn't be meeting quite so soon. After the recent activity, we felt like it was very important that we keep you guys in the loop," said Ron Brown, Carbon County Deputy Fire Warden.

When the first community meeting was held, the fire was under 10,000 acres but had grown to nearly 20,000 acres over the weekend due to low relative humidity, high winds and ample fuels.

Weather a factor

"Since we last talked, there's been a couple of challenging days in terms of weather, especially Saturday and Sunday. Those crews have been dealing with relative humidity as low as seven percent. Relative humidity is just a measure of moisture in the atmosphere. Typically, we get down to 15 percent, that's low, but were down to seven percent both days. Also temperatures were running about 10 degrees above normal, generally highs in the lower 70s on the fire," said Shawn Jacobs, incident meteorologist. "Also the winds. Winds were very critical. We had gusts in excess of 30 miles per hour and some as high as 40 miles per hour right near the fire on Saturday and then again on Sunday."

Jacobs went on to mention the plume of smoke that had been visible that Saturday. The meteorologist explained to those gathered in the opera house that an unstable atmosphere, often preceding an incoming storm, had contributed to that by providing fresh air to the fire.

"It was allowing a lot of fresh air into that fire and it was allowing that fire to generate that plume, generate a lot of its own weather," Jacobs said.

The rain that doused the area between Sunday night and Monday morning was also mentioned, with Jacobs informing everyone that a quarter-of-an-inch of rain had fallen on average, but that in some places the fire had seen half-an-inch of rainfall. Before yielding the floor, the meteorologist told residents that he was seeing a trough of low pressure that would drop on the Pacific Northwest and could possibly bring tropical moisture into the area.

Jerry Park

While the increased growth of the fire and the threat it posed to the Skyline and Big Creek communities was common knowledge, Brown informed the audience that while the fire was moving on that area it had doubled back to Jerry Park.

"Last time, we were talking about the Jerry Park area and what we were doing in that area to try and protect that private property and those structures there," Brown said. "For those of you that were here, or on Facebook, I mentioned that we already had scratch lines in place around those structures. The structures had been plumbed, there was a sprinkler system on. They were protected as well as we could protect them at that time."

Brown went on to state he had received word late Saturday afternoon the fire had passed to the south of Jerry Park.

"We thought we beat it, we thought we had it. At that point pumps were fired, the guys were out, they were in a safety zone. Now, normally, and I use that term loosely, as night falls the humidity comes up, things cool down and the fire activity decreases," said Brown.

Late Saturday night, early Sunday morning Brown received a call from Encampment Volunteer Fire Department (EVFD) Chief Cory Nuhn that the Skyline communities were in danger. Brown stressed how abnormal it was for the fire to have traveled from Jerry Park to Big Creek in just a few hours - especially considering the mountainous terrain it had to go over.

"It was the following day that I had gotten word that that front that had passed just south of Jerry Park had, in fact, moved north. From what I was told, I've heard anywhere from a two-and-a-half to three mile front, active front, that was moving north all night. It passed through the Jerry Park area and, unfortunately, we lost those structures," Brown said.

Brown ended his turn in front of the audience by stressing how important the EVFD had been to the overall efforts of keeping the Ryan Fire from moving any further than it had.

"I'm glad that Encampment showed up when they did. They're an awesome bunch of guys. You guys got a lot of good firefighters in this county and I'm sure proud to work with them," said Brown.

Time Out

"I want to echo what all of these guys have said here about our local firefighters on Saturday night. They were engaged in a fire fight all night long and they did a phenomenal job," said Brush Creek/Hayden District Ranger Jason Armbruster during his time up front.

Armbruster also recounted the history of the fire beginning with smoke reports received on Saturday, Sept. 15. According to Armbruster, a crew had been sent out to investigate, but had not seen anything and camped overnight in the area. On Sept. 16, smoke signs were spotted and air support was called in to try and extinguish the fire. High winds, however, forced the aircraft to be grounded and also contributed to the initial growth of the Ryan Fire.

The Brush Creek/Hayden District Ranger informed the audience that RMTB was getting close to timing out on the fire and would be replaced by a National Incident Management Team (NIMO). NIMO and Incident Commander Mike Quesinberry were scheduled to take over management of the Ryan Fire on Friday, Sept. 29.

While RMTB is a Type II team, NIMO is a Type I team and is adept at a multitude of incidents and can scale up or scale down for what is required by a fire, according to Armbruster. Following Armbruster was RMTB Incident Commander Mike Hatcher, who used his time on the floor to show the audience just how much the fire had grown over the course of 24 hours from 8,658 acres as of Sept. 22 to 19,328 acres as of Sept. 23.

The meeting was wrapped up following questions ranging from how the weather had led to the erratic behavior to why RMTB was not using large airplanes to drop retardant. Jay Slagowski, RMTB operations section chief, answered the latter question. Slagowski informed the audience that, while there were large fuel loads due to the amount of beetle kill, the growth of understory would prevent the retardant from getting to the ground and providing any beneficial aid.

Following a handful of questions from the audience and Facebook, the meeting was concluded in just under an hour, though some community members stayed after to speak individually with agency representatives.

UPDATE:

While cool weather and humidity managed to keep Ryan Fire from growing too much during the week, the weekend was another matter as warm temperatures and high winds kicked up the flames for the third weekend in a row. The fire would go from 21,085 acres on Friday morning to 23,779 acres on Monday morning.

The growth of 2,694 acres over the weekend is minimal compared to last weekend, when the Ryan Fire exponentially increased in size. Even though the growth of the fire wasn't nearly as much as the weekend before, it would end up forcing an evacuation of Pearl, Colo. and surrounding communities in Jackson County and putting the Skyline and Big Creek communities on pre-evacuation notice, though some locations in the area were evacuated by the Carbon County Sheriff's Department.

Saturday afternoon, following the high winds, large plumes of smoke could once again be seen filling the sky. Sunday, however, was even more smoke-filled as the wind blew the fumes from the fire across WYO 230 and towards Medicine Bow Peak. While most of the skies around Encampment and Riverside were blue, between Big Creek Ranch and Skyline it was a dingy brown nearly blotting out the sun.

Sunday night, the north end of the fire could be seen from 230 as it worked its way across Bear Mountain and the glow of the flames were reflected by the smoke. On the south end, the fire continued to work towards the community of Pearl and towards the scar from the 2016 Beaver Creek Fire. Excess smoke on that end, however, limited the view of the fire from the highway.

It was between Big Creek Ranch and Bear Creek Ranch where the smoke was the thickest, blotting out what was otherwise a clear, starry night. Vehicles driving through the area would find the inside of their vehicles filled with the smell of wood smoke and, at times, ashes falling upon the windshield.

Additionally, a preliminary investigation has been completed on the Ryan Fire and determined that it was human-caused due to an escaped campfire. Anyone who may have information on the fire is encouraged to call the fire information line at 307-314-9408.