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Elk Fire nearly 75% contained as fire activity continues to wane

Firefighters walk through a portion of Bighorn National Forest that was charred by the Elk Fire. (via Bighorn National Forest Facebook)

CASPER, Wyo. — Firefighters continued making progress in halting the ongoing Elk Fire in northern Wyoming on Friday and Saturday, which saw containment surpass 70%.

At time of publication, the Elk Fire is reported as being 73% contained, spanning about 96,955 acres.

On Friday, firefighters continued to work on both line construction and suppression repair efforts. Suppression repair is expected to be a sizable undertaking, as hundreds of miles of dozer lines were constructed to stop the fire’s spread as it actively burned and grew.

“Over the course of the fire, crews constructed more than 155 miles of heavy equipment fire line,” operations section chief trainee Nick Ostrom said. “In the last four days, we’ve completed about 65 [miles].”

Suppression repair is the first phase of wildfire recovery and is an important component to repairing damage and minimizing soil erosion. Across most of the fire’s outer perimeter, crews have been putting a strong emphasis on suppression repair.

The second and third phases of post-wildfire recovery are emergency stabilization through Burned Area Emergency Response, followed by long-term recovery and reforestation, respectively. BAER is ongoing and consists of the rapid assessment of burned watersheds to identify and act on threats that could remain after the fire.

Long-term recovery and reforestation include taking non-emergency actions to improve fire-damaged lands that are unlikely to recover naturally such as reforestation, restoring burned habitat or treating noxious weeds.

“We’re trying to put the land back to the way it was before the fire,” Ostrom said.

According to Ostrom, fire behavior analysts say the Elk Fire has likely stopped growing.

The fire’s dwindling strength has also led emergency personnel to ease several restrictions. As of Saturday, all evacuation orders for the area of Elk Fire have been lifted and Highway 14 has been reopened.

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