Fremont County emergency responders lead, battle fires on multiple fronts

LANDER —  Thursday afternoon, rain swept across Fremont County. The Weiser Knoll Fire, still 0% contained just two days prior, was 95% contained. Although the largest fire seen in Wyoming so far this summer at 15,817 acres, firefighters had managed to turn things around less than a week after the fire started.

The picture looked dramatically different Tuesday afternoon. 

As local and federal firefighters continued to fight the blaze east of Red Canyon, others raced to respond to a fast-moving fire outside of Fort Washakie. It grew from a spark to hundreds of acres comparatively quickly, and law enforcement blocked off roads as Fremont County Emergency Management announced an evacuation. 

Some watched as flames drew closer and closer to homes, igniting power poles; others tried desperately to make their way back to their own homes within the evacuation zone to rescue their pets.

Through some combination of luck, skill, and grit, the emergency responders who turned out Tuesday had the Crooked Creek Road fire under control and then extinguished relatively quickly. Although county fire personnel were not available to answer questions, the fire appeared to have primarily burned hayfields, with a possible corral, a few cars, a number of power poles, and something that may have been a barn also caught by the flames. 

In short order, more fire calls came in – one near Ethete, and one near Riverton – neither of which appears to have grown into a significant conflagration.

Following a winter of record-setting warm temperatures and dry conditions, much of the Western U.S. is in drought. With fire season in full swing, that has meant a large number of firefighters in the field; earlier this week, Reuters reported that the number of firefighters whose escape routes and safety zones had been cut off by wildfires had reached a 20-year high.

As of Friday morning, the number of personnel on the Weiser Knoll Fire had dwindled to 71 as some – including the majority of those who came from other states – were demobilized. Mop-up operations are now underway.

"Most of the resources that will be left will be kind of local," explained Rene Schell, who has been serving as the fire crew's public information officer. That doesn't mean just local volunteers, she emphasized; there are a number of state and federal firefighters who live in the area who were part of the response to the fire.

When it became apparent that the Weiser Knoll Fire was a significant fire, a request was put in for a Type 3 Incident Management Team. None ever came – but, Schell said, that doesn't mean that there was no team on the scene.

"A team was put together instead of one arriving pre-packaged," she explained. 

There weren't any federal resources held back, she emphasized, and a number of local people stepped up to lend a hand. Some of those included Bureau of Land Management personnel who paused their routine work to help with things like making maps for the fire crew.

A number of communities across the West have seen similar situations this fire season as 2026 is on track to be a historic year when it comes to fire. In its first year, the newly formed U.S. Wildfire Service, which currently consolidates all firefighting personnel under the Department of the Interior, is being forced to grapple with record-setting conditions.

Although federal firefighting budgets have looked similar over the past few years, they vary significantly from funding under the previous Trump administration. 

The fiscal year 2021 federal budget, passed under the Trump administration in 2020, included $6.3 billion for firefighting; the fiscal year 2026 federal wildfire budget is closer to $4.3 billion. 

And the number of federal wildland firefighters has also decreased over the past five years: In 2021, the U.S. Forest Service reported 14,500 wildland firefighters and the Department of the Interior employed about 5,000, while in 2026 the USFS reports fewer than 12,000 wildland firefighters while the DOI's Wildfire Service remains at about 5,000.

However, fluctuations in funding do not mean that those who respond to fires are any less dedicated. 

A large Incident Management Team would come pre-packaged with designated roles and a number of personnel from across both agencies and states; the lack of pre-packaging does not, Schell said, mean a lack of coordination. All wildland firefighters receive similar training, and mutual aid and interagency cooperation have long been hallmarks of firefighting from local volunteers to state or federal employees.

One incident she overheard a firefighter recount demonstrates that cooperation, Schell added. A firefighter from a nearby fire district described that one area of the fire his team was in turned unexpectedly hot, and he thought they might be in trouble – before an aircraft flew overhead, dropping water on the area and really saving them.

While many of the firefighters on the Weiser Knoll Fire were from within Wyoming, the fire drew some firefighters from as far away as Wisconsin. As containment has increased, those out-of-state firefighters have been among those demobilized, leaving the local folks who initially responded among those working on mop-up.

Although there have been reports about possible causes, determining an official cause of the fire will require thorough investigation, which is still underway.

This story was published on August 15, 2026. 

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