Firefighters wrapping homes, laying hose to protect Gros Ventre from Pack Trail Fire

Multi-million dollar ranches in the line of advancing fire. Crews feel confident in their ability to defend structures.

GROS VENTRE - As the Pack Trail Fire moved down Burnt Ridge, torching pine trees in its path, Chris Fizer pointed to 10 feet of bare ground firefighters had cleared between a fence and the sagebrush hillside north of the Elk Track Ranch.

If the fire got close enough, firefighters planned to climb the hill and set the sagebrush and grasses ablaze with drip torches to rob the fire of fuel, creating a buffer between the blaze, the fence and the rest of the ranch.

"Our objective is not to stop the fire," Fizer said, installing a sprinkler system near one of the Elk Track Ranch cabins. "It is to protect the structures. We're going to light it and let it keep burning."

The controlled burn north of Elk Track Ranch is just one tool firefighters are preparing if the Pack Trail Fire, measuring 87,000 acres at press time, reaches any of the ranches and other private property nestled deep in the Upper Gros Ventre River Drainage.

Fire first came to the Gros Ventre Range in mid-August when a lightning bolt sparked the Fish Creek Fire. That blaze threatened Highway 26 and grew to about 25,000 acres before crawling southeast and merging with what, at the time, was a smaller, lightning-caused fire: The Pack Trail Fire.

In the past few weeks, shifting winds have caused the combined fire to grow in multiple directions, including west toward the Gros Ventre, defying prevailing winds. For weeks, the fire held on the northeastern side of Burnt Ridge. But on Friday, when the News&Guide was with fire crews behind the closure line, it started crawling over the ridge and into the next drainage, Trail Creek. Over the weekend, it continued to crawl west, burning into yet another drainage, Bacon Creek - the last before the larger Gros Ventre River drainage.

At the Patrol Cabin Feedground, one of 21 elk feeding operations run by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in western Wyoming, firefighters have set up pumps to pull water from the creek, a 1,500 gallon plastic pond to store extra water, as well as a latticework of sprinklers and attack hoses. Sprinklers aren't intended to wet buildings, said Eric Abramson, public information officer for California Interagency Incident Management Team 10. Instead, they create a wall. If fire approaches the sprinklers at 14% humidity, when it hits the moisture, humidity can jump to 40% or 50%.

"You're creating a barrier of really high humidity," Abramson said. "It just slows it down."

Vegetation also has been cleared around private ranches, like the Goosewing, a mile-and-a-half upriver of the feedground. Elsewhere, crews are wrapping buildings in protective foil. All of that work is preventative.

The fire has not reached any structure in the valley. But if it does, fire crews want to be ready to post up around the building and fight the blaze.

On Friday, Aaron Tripolino, a task force trainee in charge of structure protection in the Gros Ventre, was unsure where the fire would head next but confident in firefighters' ability to protect the valley.

"The fire may get over the ridge the way this thing has been going. It's going to be snowfall when you guys are done with this fire," he said. "But where these structures are, they're in a good spot. They're in defensible areas. There's river bottom, grass, no real timber next to them. They look good."

To the north, the fire also had inched west into the Deer Creek drainage near the Elk Track Ranch.

The fire has been holding on the ridge above the drainage, according to Ted King, the fire team's Gros Ventre division supervisor.

"We are closely monitoring it," King said via text Tuesday. "Most of the activity is up Bacon Creek."

The Elk Track is a 150-acre private ranch surrounded by the Bridger-Teton National Forest. A few miles east of the Goosewing as the crow flies, and 42 miles by car from downtown Jackson, the ranch is at the end of the road, and only about a mile-and-a-half from the fire's western flank.

A few weeks ago, one of its owners, Burlington rancher Gene Borré visited and removed as many belongings as he could. That included saddles and tents from his outfitting business, Western Wyoming Outfitters, as well as sentimental photographs of the property. But on Friday, Taylor Camp, who said he bought his father's share of the ranch, was still on the property as firefighters worked to prepare the ranch for the coming blaze.

Camp said he's been at the ranch for about two months and watched as the fire first burned the backside of Burnt Ridge.

"It was the most powerful, majestic thing I've ever seen in my life," he said.

Originally from northern Georgia, Camp came to the Tetons this summer when the Fish Creek Fire started, concerned about the ranch. By Friday, Camp said he was ready to leave. After two months, he was confident in firefighters' work to prepare the property for the coming fire and their plans to defend it. At first, he was skeptical of how close they had placed sprinklers and hose lines to the ranch's cabins.

"You're going to let it get that close?" he remembered asking.

"Yes," firefighters told him. "And, then, we fight."

"When they say something like that, that sinks into me," Camp said. "It took up until about a few days ago to really be like, 'You know what, they got it?' I feel like the place is safe."

Camp praised the firefighters and Leslie Williams-Gomez, the Bridger-Teton's fire prevention specialist. Williams-Gomez had been in touch with him every day. She'd helped him get everything he'd asked for, except for an excavator to divert Fish Creek and flood land in front of the house.

"That kind of stuff just goes a long ways to someone who's sitting out here on a $20- to $30-million ranch," Camp said. "It's not about the money. But it is about getting that safety feeling."

On Sunday evening, a few days after Camp spoke with the News&Guide, fire officials ordered people to evacuate the Upper Gros Ventre. That included the Elk Track Ranch. Fire was moving closer.

A day later, Camp said via text that he'd evacuated - and conditions had deteriorated.

"It was bad enough that I turned my phone off, went to town, got a bougie hotel room and got drunk," he said via text.

Abramson, public information officer with the fire management team, said Camp had done the right thing.

While firefighters will occasionally allow owners to stay with their property once an evacuation order has been issued, having regular people still in a closed area gives firefighters crews another variable to manage.

While officials have ordered evacuations in the Upper Gros Ventre, they've told folks near the Darwin Ranch about 12 miles to the southeast to get ready to leave. That means the Darwin is in the "Set" stage of the "Ready, Set, Go" evacuation framework. The area near Elk Track is in the "Go" stage and should be evacuated. Officials encouraged anyone who knows hunters in either area to let them know.

Meanwhile, firefighters like Fizer are geared up for the fight. While Fizer said he prefers being in the mountains on the front line during a fire, he was still thrilled to be setting up structure protection on the Elk Track.

"I just love it," Fizer said of his work. "It's amazing, seeing what fire can do."

This story was published Oct. 16, 2024.

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