Over 21,000 Wyomingites get WyoFile delivered straight to their inbox. Join your neighbors and stay informed with the stories shaping Wyoming.

A series of lightning-sparked wildfires in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin sent authorities scrambling Wednesday and Thursday, as one fire outside Thermopolis exploded to burn across 15,000 remote acres.

That blaze, dubbed the Red Canyon Fire, drew an evacuation order from officials for an unknown number of rural homes in the area. The fire was burning in a very sparsely populated region of grass and scrub brush well east of Thermopolis itself, James Coates, secretary for the Thermopolis Volunteer Fire Department, told WyoFile.

A federal incident management team is en route to take command of the firefighting effort, Coates said, and the U.S. Bureau of L

See Full Page