The South Entrance to Yellowstone National Park is expected to remain closed into this weekend because of a fire burning in neighboring Grand Teton National Park.
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Travelers coming from the south via the popular Jackson Hole area can still access Yellowstone through Idaho and the West Entrance.
Four other entrances to Yellowstone are open, and once inside the world’s first national park, visitors won’t notice much is unusual other than a smoky haze in some parts of the sprawling park.
The blaze in Grand Teton park made a 5-mile run on Monday, forcing closure of a 10-mile stretch of US 89-191-287 that leads into Yellowstone’s South Entrance. Firefighters remain at the Fawn Pass cabin to provide structure protection and to monitor the fire movement.
In central Idaho, a 160-square-mile wildfire in a remote, mountainous area continues to defy containment and burn through timbered slopes that are hard for firefighters to reach.
Wildfire in California: In California’s San Luis Obispo County, firefighters have been able to carve containment lines around about a third of the 37,100-acre (15,000-hectare) Chimney Fire by Tuesday morning.
The largest blaze spans about 42 square miles between the community of West Yellowstone, Montana, and Madison Junction, an area in the park with a campground, visitor facilities and staff housing.
Wildfire in California: Authorities said on Monday that, due to limited resources, they had to enlist the help of local farmers to help battle flames that had destroyed more than a dozen buildings in the area.
Cal Fire said Wednesday that the 10-day-old blaze has charred almost 64 square miles of dry brush and timber.
A fast-moving rangeland wildfire in eastern Idaho expanded to almost 70 square miles Wednesday, forcing evacuations, threatening a windfarm and burning habitat needed by sage grouse, a federally protected bird.
A fire burning for a month north of Big Sur grew again to 135 square miles.
The evacuations were ordered east of Idaho Falls, where up to 70 buildings were threatened near U.S. Highway 26, the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday. Wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour were expected to blow across the dry, hot terrain, stoking extreme fire behavior.
Fire officials say the fire has scorched almost 50 square miles of brush and grass near the Idaho state line.
A week-old, 50-square-mile blaze north of Santa Barbara is still growing as it feeds on extremely dry fuels in Los Padres National Forest.
A third blaze was burning on the northeast side of the city.
Fire spokeswoman Sierra Hellstrom said Wednesday that wind and high temperatures Tuesday afternoon had pushed the fire to 1.4 square miles.
The cause of the fire is unknown.
The lightning-caused Fawn Fire about 11 miles west of Mammoth Springs has grown to 1,880 acres, or 2.9 square miles. It was ignited Saturday when a car’s broken catalytic converter sent hot debris into grassy rangeland.
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Despite its being well over a week old, the fire surged with new activity on Monday and threatened to jump the lines that were containing it, though by day’s end containment remained at 35 percent.
