Wind Cave National Park Wildfire Burns Over 7 Square Miles
WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK, S.D. (AP) — A prescribed burn in the southern portion of Wind Cave National Park that turned into a wildfire had burned more than 7 square miles within the park as of midday Tuesday, park officials said.
More than 100 crew members were fighting the 4,500-acre blaze that began Monday afternoon after strong winds carried some embers across Highway 385 in the park, said Chief Interpreter Tom Farrell, of the National Park Service.
Local, state and federal crews had established a line around 80 percent of the fire by Tuesday morning, but Farrell said officially none of the blaze had been contained. There was no estimate as to when it would be fully contained.
Thick plumes of smoke drifted through the park on Tuesday and could be seen as far north as Rapid City. The park service closed all of its backcountry and hiking trails and two park roads were also closed due to heavy fire traffic.
The park service said three ranches on the eastern side of the park boundary were threatened, but Farrell said crews burned land near the structures Monday night to stop the fire from spreading. Two park structures were also in danger.
A wildfire of this size within the park is very rare, Farrell said and noted that the park service was “in prescription” on Tuesday, meaning the weather conditions were appropriate for a prescribed burn.
“There’s always an element of risk anytime you put fire on the ground and we do everything we can to minimize risk but we can’t control the weather,” he said.
“Obviously looking back now, we wish we hadn’t, but at the time we were in prescription” he said.
Farrell said the section of the park where they started the fire had never been burned since the park was established in 1903. He said they wanted to burn that section to reduce the chance of a catastrophic wildfire.
Officials expected the dangerous fire conditions that led to the wildfire to be reduced on Wednesday, allowing crews to better contain the fire.
