Wet and cold may douse Yellowstone fire, officials hope

Mother Nature may be coming to the rescue at Yellowstone National Park, where a lightning-sparked wildfire has burned more than 9,000 acres since Sept. 13. Firefighters just have to hang tough through high winds today and tonight before hoped-for cold and snow arrive Wednesday, said Tom Kempton, a National Park Service spokesman on the scene.

“The winds are what we’re watching very carefully now,” Kempton said.

Most of the giant park, which sprawls over more than 2 million acres in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, has been unaffected by the so-called Arnica fire, which is in the Lake Village region (pictured above) on the west side of Yellowstone Lake. The Lake Yellowstone Hotel and Lake Lodge Cabins in Lake Village were undamaged, Kempton said. The area of the Old Faithful geyser, he added, was unaffected and was showing partly cloudy skies on the park webcams this afternoon.

But the blaze was spreading smoke in other areas and, along with ongoing road construction, was blocking some key in-park routes.

Although all of Yellowstone’s entrances were open today, motorists arriving from the south and planning to go north through the park were advised to allow two to four extra hours for detours, Kempton said. Of course, he added, if snow arrives Wednesday, that could impede traffic too. The park is near the end of its summer season, so many facilities are closed or will soon close.

For fire updates, check the Yellowstone website or its fire-information line, (307) 344-2580. For road updates, visit the website’s travel-alert section or call its road-information line, (307) 344-2117.

— Jane Engle, assistant Los Angeles Times Travel editor

Photos: Top, view of the fire from Lake Yellowstone Hotel in Yellowstone National Park on Sept. 28. Bottom, ice coats fire sprinklers in the park’s Lake Village area on Sept. 28. Credit: Tom Kempton.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 5:11 pm by Jane Engle and is filed under Eco-Travel, Fall, Family & Kids, Idaho, Montana, National Parks, News, Tips & Advice, Outdoors & Adventure, Rocky Mountain States, Wyoming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.