Officials with the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team gave an update on the Road 203, Cottonwood, and Morrill fires in the morning hours of Monday (March 16).
The Road 203 fire continues to be at 0% containment, with an estimation of 35,814 acres burned. Operations were limited Sunday due to cold weather conditions, but the fire perimeter was able to be assessed and evaluated. Groups of cedar trees in some areas of the fire are retaining heat.
Drones with infrared technology assisted crews on the ground in accessing and extinguishing areas of heat. Two drones will continue to be used today in addition to UTVs on the ground. The change in acreage burned number is due to updated mapping.
In a video (posted below), the management team gave an update on the Morrill and Cottonwood fires as well.
The Morrill fire, which has now burned nearly 600,000 acres across Morrill, Keith, Arthur, Grant, and Garden counties, had good progress made on it on Sunday. Monday, no big burnouts are planned as crews realize the value of the grassland for ranchers.
Four Blackhawk helicopters will be in the air today doing drops, supported by aerial supervision teams also in the air. Hot spots are the focus today, in addition to securing a fire edge and mop up work where needed.
The Morrill fire growth today is expected to be much like Sunday, described as “moderate” with the hope that no big runs of new burnt acreage will happen.
Many similarities exist between the Morrill fire and the Cottonwood fire, which still sits at an acreage estimation of over 120,000. The main similarity is the lowered likelihood of large fire runs in addition to mop-up and hot spot searches. The Cottonwood fire began south of Maxwell and Gothenburg and has threatened areas including Jeffrey Lake and Farnam.
Southern edge fire activity that flared up yesterday was taken care of and will be mopped up today along with the search for hot spots.
Homes around Jeffrey Lake were threatened again yesterday, both during the day and evening. A night shift patrol was activated to take care of those flames yesterday and secured them quickly.
