It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Friday, August 2nd. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom – Brought to you by Wyoming Senior Olympics! Don’t miss the action at this year’s summer games from today through August 4th in Cheyenne, Wyoming. For more info and a schedule of events, visit Wyoming Senior Olympics dot org.

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Historic Fort Laramie, Wyoming’s first settlement, nearly went up in flames when an out-of-control wildfire nearly burned through it the past couple of days.

The flames from what’s now being called the Pleasant Valley Fire reportedly came to within about a mile of the site that’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Cowboy State Daily’s Pat Maio spoke with residents of the town of Fort Laramie, who had been told to prepare for evacuation late Tuesday evening.

“I interviewed one lady who works for the city government there and she was telling me that she lives literally in the center of the town and it’s a town of like 200 people, right? … They loaded up two chickens in a carrier into their orange dodge 1976 van … And then they had two cats, they put them in carriers and threw them in the back of the van as well. And then they brought their German Shepherd Dog and tossed it into the back of the van as well… But they just kind of kept watching and you know, the firefighters in that neck of the woods, were able to draw the line at the canal … to the west west of town about two miles out.” 

There are a handful of other fires burning around the state, as well, in the northwest, the northeast, and the south-central part of Wyoming.

Read the full story HERE.

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The Wyoming Legislature this year did not entertain any budget or bill action featuring language about keeping former President Donald Trump off the ballot.

Yet, a handful of mailers sent to Wyoming residents last month claim that several Republican Wyoming House incumbents voted for such a measure. 

Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray is defending those mailers. 

“This all stems back to a footnote, the appropriations committee put on Chuck Gray’s budget, which said that he wasn’t to spend Wyoming taxpayer dollars on out of state lawsuits without the legislature’s permission… And so those mailers essentially equated people who voted not to delete that footnote, it equated that vote to a vote to scrub Trump from the ballot.”

Among those who have spoken with Cowboy State Daily, the legislators whom the mailers target disagree wholly with Gray’s claim that their votes equate to an attack on Trump.  

Read the full story HERE.

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A Colorado Parks and Wildlife plane that apparently looped into Wyoming airspace Tuesday has raised speculation that the aircraft was tracking wolves that had crossed the state line into Wyoming.

But Wyoming and Colorado wildlife agencies told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that there isn’t any active tracking of wolves in the area.

“Colorado Parks and Wildlife, it did confirm that they are doing some counts of pronghorn antelope. They’re, they’re they’re doing some, you know, of their herd counts, which happened about this time of year anyway.”

Wyoming Game and Fish spokeswoman Breanna Ball stated that her agency wasn’t involved in tracking wolves near the Colorado state line.

Read the full story HERE. 

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Posters seeking information about missing University of Wyoming professor Nash Quinn cover bus stops, storefront windows in downtown Laramie and on trailheads throughout Albany County.

Yet despite a massive multi-day search that’s had law enforcement, search and rescue groups and volunteers covering nearly 70,000 square acres of private and public land, Cowboy State Daily’s Jen Kocher reports that Quinn and his white mountain bike remain missing.

“There has been nothing found. It’s a very rare case where they haven’t his bike hasn’t been found in any traces of him. And I spoke to the sheriff and I asked him if he had gotten any tips and he said none. So this is a rare incident. And everybody is just very confused what where he might be and what might happen and unfortunately, there are no updates.”

The 39-year-old fine arts professor, avid cyclist and disc golf player is believed to have gone for a bike ride sometime between July 8 and July 21, and never returned.

Read the full story HERE.

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Major changes are coming to Wyoming’s television news scene with the transfer of two stations owned by Gray Television, to Marquee Broadcasting.

The sale of stations KGWN in Cheyenne, KCWY in Casper, KSTF in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and KNEP in Sidney, Nebraska, had been pending FCC approval since February. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that approval has now been granted.

“CEO Gene Steinberg told me, one of the first things we’re going to do is just listen to the community, and kind of take an assessment of what the needs are, and respond accordingly. There probably won’t be any changes in play until later this fall.” 

Two weeks into the acquisition being finalized, Marquee has already hired a news director, who will focus on listening to what the communities want to see in its news coverage.

Read the full story HERE.

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And after the dramatic explosion of Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone National Park destroyed part of a boardwalk on July 23rd and sent visitors running, the ripped open landscape looks more like a war zone than a tourist attraction.

Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that as scientists try to piece together what happened, they’re recruiting “citizen scientists” to help research the aftermath of the blast.

“What they’re hoping is that people who witnessed it themselves or took pictures of the Black Diamond pool, or the general area, in the hours and days leading up to that explosion, might share that information with them so they have a better understanding about what happened, and how they might be able to understand these things in the future.”

Biscuit Basin will remain closed to tourists for the rest of 2024. Scientists need to analyze the area to understand its current and future behavior better while the National Park Service assesses the infrastructure damage caused by the explosion.

Read the full story HERE.

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A challenger to incumbent state Rep. Landon Brown is accusing the lawmaker of “flip-flopping” on votes, comparing him to 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Exie Brown, who is running against Landon Brown for the for Wyoming House District 9 seat, says Landon voted against a bill prohibiting males identifying as females from participating in female-designated school sports in 2022, but then voted to support it in 2023.

Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson spoke to Landon Brown after the remarks were made at a Politics In the Park rally in Cheyenne Wednesday evening. 

“Landon Brown explained to me that he has no problem switching his vote on a bill if he thinks the bill has been improved from what was not passable before. And he thinks the matter’s just kind of simple as that.” 

Rep. Landon Brown clapped back at his challenger, saying he’d rather focus on issues than taking pot shots at people.

Read the full story HERE.

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Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in Wyoming and the United States, saw coal sales out of its Powder River Basin open-pit mines drop 16.4% in the second quarter of 2024 from year-ago levels.

And energy reporter Pat Maio says profits continued to fall.

“They’re seeing continued declines… in coal production, and, you know, the challenges that they’re trying to meet as a result of that. And I mean, they’re at historic lows for the last decade.” 

Peabody President and CEO Jim Grech cited depressed natural gas prices as a main reason for the challenges with selling coal, as utility companies have selected that rival commodity to fuel their power plants.

Read the full story HERE.

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The state of Wyoming may take a more active role in promoting building more affordable housing in communities around the Cowboy State.

The Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee unanimously advanced legislation when it met this week that clarifies state-owned land can be used for residential purposes. Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that the legislation is a result of increased pressure in areas around the state with serious affordable housing shortages, like Jackson and Laramie.

“And a lot of what this bill does is basically clarify that the state can do this… it allows for a prioritization to use it for this purpose, for residential purposes, whereas kind of currently, it’s just they’re allowed to do it.”  

However, critics say these are local issues, and that the state shouldn’t set itself up to be in the residential landlord business.

Read the full story HERE.

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The Wyoming Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a father against a counselor who denied the father access to his 7-year-old daughter’s counseling file.  

Crime and Courts reporter Clair McFarland explains that the decision stems from a contentious custody battle that began in Montana, but crossed state lines when the girl and her mother moved to Park County, Wyoming.

“The girl … starts going to a counselor, and the father, while he’s applying for a change in the terms of his custody, he sent a subpoena to the counselor saying I want the records that you have from counseling my daughter. The judge denied some of those records, saying there’s a concern for the child’s best interests. That was wrong, according to the Wyoming Supreme Court, because in our rules of civil procedure, here in Wyoming, you can’t deny a subpoena based on the child’s best interest. There’s a list of reasons you can deny a subpoena, but that’s not one of them.”

Wyoming law also gives a parent the authority to waive his child’s medical confidentiality privilege.

Read the full story HERE.

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And that’s today’s news! For a deeper dive into the people and issues that affect Wyoming, check out The Roundup, conversations with the most interesting people in the Cowboy State. A new episode drops tomorrow, when I have a conversation with Wyoming country music artist Chancey Williams. You can find the link on our website, on our YouTube Channel, and wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, you’ll find it in our FREE daily newsletter! Thanks for tuning in – I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.

Historic Fort Laramie, Wyoming’s first settlement, nearly went up in flames when an out-of-control wildfire nearly burned through it the past couple of days.

Town Clerk Tristica Short got wind of something bad happening late Tuesday evening when she looked out her window across the street from the Haystack gas station along the Heartland Expressway.

The flames also got too close for comfort to the Historic military fort of the same name nearby, which reportedly came to within about a mile of the site that’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

The smell of something burning on the range to the west was wafting in the air, Short told Cowboy State Daily.

The orange glow of the wildfire and a several-mile-long plume of smoke swirling in the atmosphere was clearly visible at about 9:30 p.m. from behind their newly built garage. The old one went up in flames about a year ago and the new fire visible to the west had consumed nearly 23,100 acres north of the Heartland was giving her “PTSD.”

In a few short hours, a pair of smaller fires had merged into what’s now called the Pleasant Valley Fire.

Short said she couldn’t see the stars in the sky or much of anything else except for Wyoming Highway Patrol cars and fire trucks with flashing lights at the western edge of town.

“The entire town was fogged out,” Short said.

With a population of just over 200, Short and other emergency responders in Fort Laramie government began issuing warnings on Facebook that residents should get prepared for an evacuation.

Earlier in the day, the Pleasant Valley Fire forced the temporary evacuation of Hartville to the north of Guernsey as well as residents who lived in canyon communities located along Pleasant Valley Road and Waylon Canyon. Those areas are generally to the northeast of Guernsey.

Short heeded her own advice.

She and her boyfriend, Fort Laramie councilman Jackob Ellis, loaded up their two chickens in carriers, two cats named Toulouse and Chester (also in carriers) and Luna, their German shepherd, into the back of their 1976 orange Dodge van.

Their cat Phoenix couldn’t be found.

“It was very stressful,” Short said. “The only happy face outta the van would have been Luna!”

In their Impala, she tossed in birth certificates, clothing and the necessities that a seven-month pregnant woman needs, like toiletries and blankets. They were thinking of heading to Torrington to the south, but never did, and eventually the couple slipped back into their home in the early hours on Wednesday.

Merging Fires

Earlier Tuesday, Short had run up the Heartland, which is U.S. Highway 26, the main thoroughfare through the affected fire region, to check in on her mother. Her mother lives at the scene of the Pleasant Valley Fire that erupted Tuesday forcing the evacuations to the north.

“At that time, you could clearly see the two fires — the Haystack and the Pleasant Valley — before they merged,” she said.

But late Tuesday, fire hell struck and sent shivers down the spines of the rural communities in the border areas of Platte and Goshen counties.

“I was just waiting for the final say to evacuate. I had all our animals loaded up and two vehicles packed,” she said.

As of Thursday, the Pleasant Valley and Haystack fires had officially combined. The revised count Thursday is that the fire had burned 23,089 acres in the two-county area. Flare-ups were visible along U.S. 26 on Wednesday evening. Trees, telephone poles and fences were still burning or smoking from the intense firestorm that rushed into the area.

The movement of the fire into Fort Laramie was essentially halted by an irrigation canal that crosses U.S. 26 about 2 miles to the west of town.

Since Wednesday, the fire has pulled back from the Heartland Expressway and headed deep into the Haystack Range, said Wyoming State Forestry spokesman Jerod Delay.

He described the range as having tough terrain with boulders, steep cliffs and lots of tinder to burn, like tall grasses, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper woodlands.

The burn area in the Haystack range is between the McGinnis Pass and McCann Pass in Goshen County at about 5,000 feet in elevation. The range passes are located east of Whalen Canyon Road in the county and are located about 6 miles apart.

The southern end of the fire is about 8 miles to the northeast of Guernsey, the area where the Pleasant Valley fire first started.

Fire Size Downgraded

The size of the fire was revised downward from 28,000 acres overnight after a Multi-Mission Aircraft from Colorado’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control flew over the burn area, said Vince Welbaum, the aviation unit chief for the plane based in Centennial, Colorado.

Colorado has two Pilatus PC-12 airplanes that have the capability to use infrared sensing capabilities to map and shoot video of burn areas through smoke, Welbaum explained.

At the moment, the Wyoming Forestry Service Division isn’t showing any containment of the fire. Neither have there been any reports of injuries or destroyed homes, Delay said.

The summer is shaping up to become one of the worst in the United States.

As of Aug. 1, there are 93 large active wildfires across the U.S. that have burned more than 2.3 million acres. More than 29,100 firefighters have been assigned to fight these fires, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Fires Everywhere

In Wyoming, there are a handful of fires in various stages of cleanup.

Before the Haystack and Pleasant Valley fires, the Clearwater Fire located west of Cody had been the largest spot to watch on the state’s wildfire radar.

This blaze is located on a ridgeline between Elk Fork and June Creek drainages about a mile south of Clearwater Campground and 11 miles west of Wapiti, Wyoming.

The fire is near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park in the Shoshone National Forest.

The fire is the result of a lightning strike July 19 that caused a 1,167-acre wildfire that briefly closed the East Entrance to Yellowstone last weekend, said Ranae Pape, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service in the region.

On Aug. 1, the National Interagency Fire Center reported that the fire is not contained at all.

On Monday, the fire edged north up Elk Fork Canyon before heading toward the Highway 14/16/20 corridor. That prompted evacuations of the Big Game, Elk Fork and Wapiti campgrounds, the Pagoda summer homes and the Wapiti Ranger Station.

The fire is located in very difficult terrain that makes suppression efforts challenging, the agency reported.

The Cold Springs Fire in Converse County is completely contained. Delay said that the fire burned between 1,800 and 2,000 acres.

No structures or homes have been lost in this fire.

On July 29, hundreds of residents in tiny Upton, Wyoming, on the border of Crook and Weston counties were chased from their homes as a fast-moving grass fire threatened subdivisions along Barton Road.

Extreme winds pushed a grassfire out of Crook County directly toward Upton to the southeast. Crook County Emergency Management warned its Weston County counterparts to evacuate residents in subdivisions along Barton Road.

Those evacuation orders have since been lifted. The fire has been fully contained.

Closing Interstate 80

On Wednesday, a fire briefly closed the Interstate-80 eastbound lanes at milepost 206 near Rawlins, Delay said.

“It was from a previous fire. The wind caught it just right and rekindled it,” said Delay of the Carbon County fire.

On July 29 west of Gillette, the Campbell County Fire Department battled 50 mph winds whipping a grass fire into a frenzy that consumed mobile homes, campers and several pets over the weekend.

More than 2,000 acres in Campbell County burned from 16 fires from July 26-28, according to Fire Marshall Stuart Burnham of the Campbell County Fire Department in Gillette, Wyoming.

All of the fires have been contained, he said.

One fire resulted in 38 acres burning after a fiery plane crash July 26 killed three members of the gospel group The Nelons, The plane, which was enroute to Billings, Montana, went down 8 miles south of the Montana border in Campbell County.

A second large grass fire destroyed multiple homes and vehicles on 10 acres.

Some of the fires were the result of lightning strikes or strong winds knocking over power lines, Burnham said.

“I know a lot of Campbell County has fire restrictions in place, as well as all of northeastern Wyoming,” Burnham told Cowboy State Daily. “I would encourage people to know what those restrictions are and exercise caution.”

Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.