Mop up begins on West Mullan Fire

(Tuesday July 23, 8:00am) SUPERIOR --- Despite the West Mullan Fire reaching 6,090 acres on Monday night, mop-up operations are underway.

Fire crews made progress on the northeast portion of the fireline near Wood Gulch – working on burnout operations to remove any fuel left unburned that could potentially ignite and continue the wildfire.

According to a press release from the Northern Rockies Incident Management Team, the goal for Tuesday is to “strengthen the fireline” in the Wood Gulch area and continue working in a grid pattern to locate and extinguish each individual hotspot.

The grueling work of mop-up consists of firefighters removing their protective gloves in order to check the ground for hotspots. When a hotspot is found it is dug out and drenched with a hose in order to ensure that it will not reignite.

Incident Commander Tom Heintz will be working with Mineral County Sheriff Ernie Ornelas to create a plan that will allow evacuees to return to their properties.

Until the plan is in place area closures and evacuations are still in place. West Mullan Road is open only to residents and Flat Creek Road remains closed.

The Big Eddy Fishing Access Site, Keystone Gulch and Pardee Road remain closed.

“If all goes as planned, the Incident Management Team will begin to develop a timeline to consider what resources be released to other fires across the nation,” the press release reads.

As of publication there are 914 firefighters working the blaze, which is 45 percent contained and has cost an estimated $6.5 million.

The American Cross closed down the evacuation shelter set up at the Superior Elementary School on Monday in anticipation of the final evacuation orders being lifted.

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(SUNDAY JULY 21) MINERAL COUNTY COURTHOUSE ---In just a week, the West Mullan Fire has grown from several hundred acres to 5,880 – with an estimated 35 percent containment and over 900 US Forest Service Firefighters from around the nation fighting the blaze around the clock.

However spirits were high at Sunday night’s public meeting on the lawn of the Mineral County Courthouse in Superior. Northern Rockies Incident Operations Specialist Joe Brabender began the meeting by addressing the approximately 70 residents gathered with some good news.

“I’ll start with Pardee Creek – the fire has not moved up in there for a few days now and it’s cooled off relatively nice,” Brabender said. “There is some pretty tight canyon in their and still some fires but it’s doing real nice. We did get it all tied off.”

Brabender said over 100 firefighters have been working in the Pardee Creek area to get the fires along with air support in the form of suppressant drops in order to make sure the fire “doesn’t take off again.”

Power lines on the northern edge of the blaze created some issues for firefighters today and Brabender said smoke ran up to the power lines and put the personnel in danger, prompting a call a shut down of the lines for four hours today enabling progress to continue.

“We still have a lot of work to do and we don’t want to rush ourselves,” Brabender said. “But we are feeling pretty good that we can get it taken care of in the next couple of days.”

Firefighter safety remains a top priority for the incident management team and Brabender said that even though they expect to get the blaze “mopped up” in the next couple of days they will still be taking their time which is why the containment level remains low.

“We don’t want to say that it is contained until we get it mopped up to a level that we feel the line is safe so we can put it at a patrol status instead of a mop up status,” Brabender said.

Weather in the area is projected to remain hot and dry in the upcoming days, with low humidity and the potential for thunderstorms as a high-pressure system comes up from the south. Conditions will create active fire behavior Monday and according to a Sunday night press release cause concerns such as short crown fire runs, rollouts and short range spotting.

Incident Commander Tom Heintz concluded the meeting by saying his team feels “a lot better tonight then we did the night before” and reiterated Brabender’s assessment the work on the blaze would be wrapped up in the next couple of days.

“But we don’t want to get a head of ourselves,” Heintz said. “There is still a lot of fire at the north end and still a lot of hazard and potential for that fire to escape. It looks like we are headed in the right direction.”

Heintz also addressed what the public can expect after the Northern Rockies Incident Command Team starts to close line and resources are sent to other fires around the nation.

“From this point we will start to slowly scale down,” Heintz said. “We came quick and in that respect we will go quick. But we are not going to leave until the job is done that we came to do.”