Crews Hose Down Buildings : Wind-Blown Flames Peril Scenic Yellowstone Area

Brisk winds carried a 108,300-acre blaze over fire lines Thursday, fanning flames to within less than a half mile of one of Yellowstone National Park’s most scenic areas and forcing officials to close the park’s west entrance.

Fire crews began hosing down the 600 cabins and other buildings at the Canyon area, one of the largest developments in the nation’s oldest national park, as flames became visible from the area. Firefighters also began unrolling water lines on roofs for sprinkler systems to bolster protection.

The North Fork fire jumped the road from Norris Junction to Canyon despite efforts to create a fire break before the road, officials said.

Two other fires--the 162,000-acre Clover Mist fire on the park’s eastern side and an 88,326-acre fire in the park’s southern end--burned but threatened no buildings.

Fire Herded Toward Park

To the south of Yellowstone in Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest, fire managers chose to herd a 15,569-acre blaze north toward Yellowstone, hoping it would run out of fuel when it merged with other blazes.

In Yellowstone, all roads into the Canyon area were closed and heavy smoke obscured the sun and reduced visibility to less than 200 yards. With the park’s south entrance already closed, only three entrances remained open.

The fire’s flare-up followed a lull earlier in the day that provided a breather for the firefighters.

Park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt said the North Fork blaze grew by about 10,000 acres Wednesday, but part of the acreage was attributed to backfires set to create a fire break in a meadow west of Canyon.

361 Visitors Evacuated

Park officials evacuated 361 visitors from Canyon on Wednesday, moving them to other park lodgings. Other park areas closed by fires include the Pebble Creek, Norris, Madison and Lewis Lake campgrounds.

In southern Montana, firefighters battling a pair of major wilderness forest fires that burned close to 60,000 acres braced for a hot afternoon with gusting winds.

A lightning storm moved toward the Helena area, where fire crews hoped to contain a 37,200-acre blaze to the southeast, while a 900-acre fire in central Montana moved away from a Minuteman missile silo.

That fire broke out Wednesday afternoon and more than doubled to 900 acres overnight, but Zail Chapman, dispatcher for the Helena National Forest in Great Falls, said: “The missile silo is completely secure.”

Firefighters Withdraw

Malmstrom Air Force Base at Great Falls sent military police and firefighters to protect the silo Wednesday but withdrew them during the night, Capt. Donald Planalp said Thursday. “There is really nothing above ground that’s flammable.”

Oregon State Fire Marshal Olin Greene issued a statewide ban on outdoor burning, with the exception of approved field burning, a day after Gov. Neil E. Goldschmidt declared a state of emergency in southwest Oregon, where three major fires charred 2,600 acres and destroyed a rural house.