Forecasts Favor Fire Growth In Yellowstone, Grand Teton

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) -€” As visitors enjoyed free entry to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks on Friday firefighters in both parks prepared for an expected increase in fire activity over the weekend.

Weather forecasts predicted warmer temperatures, lower humidity and increased wind, all of which means fires in the two parks will likely become more active Saturday and Sunday.

Yellowstone fire spokesman Bill Swartley said the unknown factor is how strong the wind will be this weekend.

"These fires, for the past 24 hours and today, the fire weather conditions are just kind of holding in check, bedding down so to speak, creeping, crawling, smoldering a little bit," Swartley said Friday.

In Yellowstone, vehicles lined up Friday morning at four of the park's four open entrances. The South Entrance remains closed because of a wildfire in Grand Teton, forcing some Yellowstone visitors to take an hour-long detour.

Firefighters in Grand Teton are trying to reopen U.S. 89/191/287 that leads into Yellowstone, but officials remain uncertain when that will happen.

"With four-and-a-half miles of open fire on either side of that road, it's a large job falling and getting the hazard trees reduced," Grand Teton fire spokesman Ben Brack said. "There's a lot of fire weakened trees that have come down on the road and have the potential to, so obviously we can't open it up until all those hazards have been sufficiently reduced."

With the highway blocked, visitors in Grand Teton who want to visit neighboring Yellowstone have to drive west into Idaho to access the West Entrance of Yellowstone. The detour adds about an hour to a drive to Old Faithful.

Firefighters were taking advantage of the cooler, calm weather Friday, Brack said.

(© Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)