Wyoming officials are calling a 118-square-mile fire charging through the Bighorn National Forest “unprecedented.”
In an Elk Fire community meeting in Big Horn on Oct. 9, forest Supervisor Andre Johnson described the conditions under which firefighters have been working.
“When I say we are facing unprecedented fire conditions, this doesn’t feel like a normal October here in our community,” he said. “It’s hotter, it’s drier, and the relative humidity is lower.”
Johnson said extreme wind has only exacerbated conditions.
“The fire is behaving like a teenager,” he said. “It lays down and sleeps during the day and gets unruly at night, and that’s not good.”…