Gaining Ground in Squirrel Creek Fire

UPDATE: A public meeting relative to the Squirrel Creek Fire is being held Thursday July 5th, 2012 at 6:30 PM.  The meeting will take place at Centennial School and should not take longer than an hour.  The agenda will cover incident reports from the Incident Commander of the fire, Mr. Rocky Opliger.

With 682 people working to fight the blaze, the Squirrel Creek fire is now said to be 51% contained.  The fire is believed to have started the afternoon of June 30th and has led to several evacuations of nearby homes and communities in the days since.

Now, some roads have been opened and some evacuations have been lifted.  According to Incident Management officials and the website InciWeb, the evacuation notice for areas east of Sheep Mountain to Harmony Lane, and south of Lake Hattie have been lifted.  This includes the area northwest of Lake Hattie to Hwy 130.

A spokes person for California Interagency Emergency Management also said that Wyoming Highway 10 from Woods Landing heading south has been opened.  Also, Wyoming Highway 230 heading east from Woods Landing to Laramie has been opened as well.  Both these stretches of Highway had been closed during the weekend due to fire dangers.

Roads in the area that remain closed are the Platte River Access Road, Fox Park Road, Wyoming Highway 230 from Woods Landing heading south to the state line, and Fox Creek Road from Wyoming Highway 11 to Wyoming Highway 230.

An evacuation notice is still in place the Lake Own and Dry Park vicinities and a pre-evacuation notice, issued on Wednesday, still stands for the community of Albany, Wyoming as well as a 4-mile radius surrounding Albany.  People in the pre-evacuation zone are advised by the Albany County Sheriff’s Office to prepare to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

An information hotline has been set up by the Incident Management team for people who need specific information.  That phone number is (307)-721-4445.  Other general information is also being posted on the Albany County website (click link) and the website InciWeb (click link).