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Sept. 3: Real progress on east flank of Elephant Hill fire

Flank didn’t receive the winds that were expected
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Smoke from the Elephant Hill fire billows up behind private residences located near the southwest end of Sheridan Lake on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 2. Photo by Aaron Taylor.

9 p.m. update: Crews did some burn off, planned ignitions, mop up and are putting in some black line, as well as improving containment on the east flank of the Elephant Hill fire, says Fire Information Officer Noelle Kekula.

She says she spent most of her afternoon and evening at the Big Sky camp and consequently doesn’t have much information on the north flank.

“It doesn’t sound like they saw a lot of fire activity on the east flank, in and around all of Hihium Lake, south of Young Lake. They made some real progress today and they were pretty happy with how they did today.”

That flank didn’t receive the winds that were expected and made some real progress as a result, says Kekula.

At this time, she says she doesn’t have any information on the Rayfield Valley, Watch Lake or the north flank in general.

“I can give you updates tomorrow.”

In regards to how close exactly the fire was to Sheridan Lake, she says she has not yet seen pictures of how close it got and is only able to comment on what has been shared by Structural Protection Units and crews.

Original story: Air support was grounded on the Elephant Hill fire due to heavy smoke this morning, according to Fire Information Officer Noelle Kekula.

“I know that we have crews on the ground doing work but just going and inspecting and doing some mop up and doing some hot spotting and extinguishing of those hot spots.”

Crews are working to protect life and property and that winds aren’t expected to show up until this afternoon, she says.

“It definitely got within a few 100 meters of Sheridan Lake,” says Kekula about yesterdays activity. “The SPU group, the air support, the tankers, the crews on the ground, it just was amazing. They did amazing work and from what we know no structures were lost.”

On a separate note, Kekula says there are Structural Protection Units in the Young Lake area but there are no new structures lost that they’ve heard of.

On a final note, Kekula asks people to “just be safe.”