As the Elk Fire grew to nearly 50,000 acres in northern Wyoming Thursday, people in nearby Dayton are worried.

“We’ve got families in crisis. We have students that either need to help their families pack and get ready to evacuate – we have a lot of staff members who are actually in the fire department, up there, fighting,” said Jeff Jones, Dayton schools superintendent.

The wildfire was started by lightning on Sept. 7 near Dayton and is burning through rugged forest land. It has resulted in numerous evacuations and school closures in the area.

People from all walks of life are coming together to protect places, including the Mountain Inn Bar.

“It’s actually the last retail place before you get up onto the mountain … It’s my life. It’s – it’s the only thing I have,” said Denise Townsend, who bought the bar about a decade ago with her late husband.

Three wildlife guides are facing possible prison time and fines up to a quarter of a million dollars, after they allegedly ran an illegal hunting enterprise that resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen mountain lions, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

In a 13-count indictment returned at the end of August, a federal grand jury charged Michael Kulow, 44, Andrea May Major, 44, and LaVoy Linton Eborn, 47, with conspiracy to violate a federal act banning illegal trafficking of wildlife and multiple violations of the act itself, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Idaho. The guides are all from Idaho.

The charges stemmed from the trio’s alleged exploits between December 2021 and February 2022. They are accused of working illegally as big game outfitters and guides in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and the Bridger-Teton National Forest, U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit said, citing the indictment. The national forests are located in southeastern Idaho and western Wyoming, respectively.

Kulow, Major and Eborn were employed in Idaho by a licensed outfitter — a company that provides various services to hunters, including guiding — when they began to independently book and accept payments from hunting clients at the end of 2021, the U.S. attorney said. The three of them allegedly guided those clients through illegal hunts for mountain lions, leading to the killings of at least 11 of the animals in Idaho, and one more Wyoming. The mountain lion killed in Wyoming was a cougar recorded by the Boone and Crockett Club.

The trio is also accused of falsifying portions of their big game mortality reports, which Idaho requires them to submit to the state’s fish and game department, after those illegal hunts. At least three of the poached mountain lions were shipped to Texas without proper documentation, officials said, and all the animals were transported from protected land to or from Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, Texas and North Carolina. Each of those transports would violate Idaho state laws as well as federal laws under the Lacey Act.

The Lacey Act prohibits illegal trafficking of wildlife and plants, and regulates how both are traded or moved between states or into the country. Under the terms of the act, it is against federal law “to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce any plant, with some limited exceptions, taken or traded in violation of the laws of the United States, U.S. State or a foreign country,” according to Customs and Border Protection.

Amendments to the law in recent decades extended its provisions to bar trafficking of plants or animal products that were illegally harvested, as well as products without a certain kind of declaration, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says.

Kulo and Major were arrested Sept. 24 and booked with the U.S. Marshals Service in Boise, according to Hurtwit’s office. Eborn was taken into custody the following day and booked with the Marshals Service in Pocatello. Each pleaded not guilty during initial appearances before U.S. Magistrate Judge Debora K. Grasham in Idaho district court.

Their jury trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 18 in federal court in Pocatello.

The charges were announced the same week than an 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced to six months in federal prison for violating the Lacey Act. Arthur “Jack” Schubarth was accused of illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – The Elk Fire in Sheridan County, Wyoming, continues to grow.

As of now, according to the U.S. Forest Service, the fire has grown to approximately 32,000 acres.

The wildfire remains at zero percent containment at this time, with about 200 people at the scene.

Overnight, the fire moved further to the northeast as fire crews continue their fire suppression efforts.

Firefighters on the ground continue to receive air support when weather permits. U.S. Highway 14 is still closed from Dayton to Burgess Junction.

The Sheridan County Sheriff gave evacuation orders last night for Tongue River Canyon West of Dayton, Twin Creek Road west of Parkman, and Pass creek Road.

The Sheriff’s department has also elevated the evacuation status for both residents living next to east of U.S. Highway 14 and the Eagle Ridge Subdivision to “Set.”

Residences in Parkman, north of Parkman, and Dayton have been issued a pre-evacuation notice.

Anyone impacted by evacuations can call the Sheridan County Emergency Management line at 307-752-2174.

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