Restoration Begins on Area Damaged During Roaring Lion Firefight

Repair work began this week on the Roaring Lion Fire near Hamilton and many of the firefighters are now tasked with activity that sounds a bit like gardening.

“They are moving into the repair phase,” said Fire Information Officer Lisa Keibler. “That’s when they go in and all of the fire line and dozer line that was put in to stop the fire, they go in and it’s called suppression repair, so they rehab it. They put it back so that nature takes its course and fills it in, so you don’t see lines going up the side of the mountain anymore.”

The firefighters will carry out the repair phase on public lands, but not on private property. Keibler says there will still be some smoke from the fire, which is being allowed to burn in the wilderness.

“We have 54 people working on it: we still have a wildland fire module, one type two helicopter and the crews associated with that, plus we have the Trapper Creek Job corps fire crew there,” Keibler said. “There is still a chance that we would need to draw line. We still have patrols going on and looking for smokes. So, it’s definitely not a move to full repair, we are still doing repression work too.”

Today, August 31, is the last daily update on the Roaring Lion Fire, now that crews are in the repair phase Keibler says that updates will only come out when there are major changes on the fire.