Flat Rock Fire at 75% containment; crews will soon begin repair work on private lands

Flat Rock Fire at 75% containment; crews will soon begin repair work on private lands

GILLETTE (WNE) — Firefighters are making a lot of progress to contain the two large wildfires in Campbell County, and crews plan to start some repair work Thursday.

Thursday morning, the Flat Rock Fire was 75% contained, up from 54% Wednesday morning, while the Constitution Fire remains at 57% containment. Neither fire has grown in acreage since Tuesday. The Flat Rock Fire is the bigger of the two, at 52,421 acres, while the Constitution Fire has burned 24,594 acres.

Brandon Glenn with Southwest Area Incident Management Team No. 5 said that a coal seam was found while crews were working on the Flat Rock Fire.

Right now, the work on the Flat Rock Fire is “just patrolling, making sure nothing gets out of there,” he said, and Constitution Fire is in a similar situation.

Glenn said the team is focused on contacting the affected private landowners to see if they want repair work done on their land. If they want their cut fences fixed or the heavy equipment lines repaired, they can call 307-303-7642 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The House Draw Fire in Johnson County is 94% contained, while the Remington Fire in Sheridan County and Montana is 61% contained. Those have combined to burn about 370,000 acres.

This story was published on August 29, 2024.