Editor’s note: The Tannerite Fire is now known as the Boulder Lake Fire. 

SUBLETTE COUNTY, WYO – Even as red flag warning days persist, the Tannerite Fire is laying down nicely at night and containment lines are holding by day when the winds pick up.

Type 4 Incident commander Patrick Tenney assumed command of the fire at 6:30am today. The fire has been renamed the Boulder Lake Fire in reference to the geographic location of the incident.

The fire was flown Wednesday and a more accurate acreage was mapped for a total of 1,359 acres. The change in size is not due to any new spread of the fire. Crews were successful in mop up operations and have increased containment to 80%.

Today, crews will continue to patrol for any remaining hot spots and monitor control lines watching for smoke

The Burnt Lake Road will be reopened Friday morning. There will continue to be significant fire traffic on this stretch of road through Thursday night.

The fire burned on multiple jurisdictions including US Forest Service (776 acres, 53 % of the total acreage burned), Wyoming Game & Fish state land (568 acres, 42%), private land (35 acres, 3%), Bureau of Land Management (29 acres, 2%). Since the fire started on the BLM, they are the lead agency.

Fire managers owe some success in holding the Boulder Lake Fire at a manageable size to the availability of firefighting resources. The current National Preparedness Level is 2 on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest). This preparedness level indicates the amount of fire activity; new starts or initial attack fires being responded to, and the number of ongoing large fires in the nation.

“At this time last year, we were at a national preparedness level 5. That means a lot of large fires were burning, and those fires were a high priority because they were threatening homes in California and elsewhere,” said Nan Stinson, Public Information Officer. “Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACC’s) look at all the resource orders and prioritize which incidents have the greatest need. With this fire, they were fortunate to get all the resources they needed at the time.”

Boulder Lake Fire at 1,359 acres and declared 80% contained. (Courtesy BTNF)