Elkhorn Fire considered 100% contained; conditions remain ripe for more wildfires in North Dakota
The Elkhorn Fire that's been burning in northwestern North Dakota for 1 1⁄2 weeks was deemed fully contained on Wednesday.
The wildfire started in the Grassy Butte area on Saturday, Oct. 5, fueled by drought and driven by winds that day gusting to near 80 mph in the region.
"We had to quickly evaluate the situation and identify structures at risk and start suppression efforts in areas where it was safe to place firefighters for an initial attack," Watford City Fire Chief Dave Uhlich said.
The fire burned 10,313 acres. No injuries to people were reported, and only one rural outbuilding burned. The impact to livestock isn't known. The cause is still under investigation.
The U.S. Forest Service's Dakota Prairie Grasslands office and the Watford City Volunteer Fire Department announced Wednesday that the fire was 100% contained. It had been at 75% on Tuesday.
Crews will now begin fire suppression repair work. That entails repairing damages and minimizing potential soil erosion and impacts resulting from fire suppression work. The actions are usually started in the burned area as soon as it is safe, especially for large fires, according to the Forest Service. Examples include repairing roads damaged by heavy equipment, clearing debris from stream channels, and spreading mulch to protect bare soils and boost moisture retention.
The Elkhorn was one of six major fires that broke out in the region the first weekend of October; together they burned as much as 118,000 acres, or about 185 square miles. The only one still active on Wednesday was the Bear Den Fire near Mandaree on the Fort Berthold Reservation, which was considered 85% contained. That fire burned 11,746 acres.
The fires threatened communities, prompted evacuations, shut down portions of highways, damaged or destroyed homes, rural outbuildings and vehicles, killed livestock, damaged more than 500 power poles and cut electricity to thousands of people. Two people died - ranchhand Nicolaas van Eeden, 26, of South Africa, and Edgar Coppersmith, 47, of Tioga - and six others were injured. The response involved crews from multiple states fighting the flames from the ground and from the air.
Conditions in much of North Dakota are ripe for more wildfires, with breezy conditions and no rain in the forecast. Winds on Wednesday were gusting in excess of 20 mph in many western areas, and in excess of 30 mph in the far south central and southeastern regions, according to National Weather Service data. The agency issued a red flag warning for the latter two regions due to the critical fire weather conditions.
The fire danger on Wednesday was rated as "high" in northeastern North Dakota, "extreme" in the northwestern corner, and "very high" everywhere else, according to the state Department of Emergency Services.
Several small fires have popped up in western and southern North Dakota over the past couple of days, including a couple in Morton County, and one in Golden Valley County that burned about 1,000 acres. None of those fires had grown out of control as of Wednesday afternoon. The Double Ditch Fire north of Bismarck this past weekend burned 1,100 acres.
Halfway through the fall season, Bismarck and Jamestown are on pace for their warmest fall on record, and Dickinson and Minot are potentially looking at their second- and third-warmest, respectively, the Weather Service said Wednesday. Bismarck is on pace for its second-driest fall season, Dickinson its third-driest and Jamestown its ninth-driest.
A DES map that tracks active wildfires across the state is at NDResponse.gov/firemonitor . An online resource hub set up by DES to aid wildfire victims can be accessed at . More information about burn restrictions and fire danger is at ndresponse.gov/burn .
