A lightning-caused wildfire 5 miles south of Casper, Wyoming has burned 15,284 acres south of the city on Casper Mountain. According to the National Situation Report seven structures have been destroyed.
The fire started at 4:30 p.m. on September 9, and grew quickly. A Rocky Mountain Region Type 2 Incident Management Team with Incident Commander Todd Pachota was dispatched to the fire on Monday.
Approximately 150 homes, including 400 residents, have been evacuated.
On Monday Air Tanker 911, a DC-10, left Sacramento with a load of fire retardant, flew to the fire and dropped 11,600 gallons, then landed at the Casper airport, only 15 miles northwest of the fire. It had to sit there for a while as thunderstorms passed over, then it reloaded and dropped on the fire again, for a total of 23,200 gallons. The ship could be an awesome weapon at that fire with very fast turnarounds, dropping 11,600 gallons each time.
The weather on Tuesday will be more moderate than the last two days. The cloud cover will increase to 74% by noon, high temperature will be 75, the humidity will bottom out at 21%, and the winds will be northeast shifting to the northwest at 8 to 14, with gusts to 21 by late afternoon.
A live web cam feed can be found at K2Radio. You have to manually refresh the page to obtain updated images.
The video below is a time-lapse showing the smoke from the fire on Sunday. Unfortunately a tree partially blocks the view.
UPDATE at 12:47 p.m. MT, September 11, 2012:
The Incident Management Team has posted a map of the fire at their InciWeb web site.
As far as I know, there is still a TBM air tanker on Casper Mountain that was left there after it crashed in the early 1960’s.