Wildfire — Northeast Johnson County, Wyoming

2024-08-21 to 2024-08-30 · Northeast Johnson County, Wyoming

Wider weather episode

The House Draw fire was sparked by by a lightning strike on the afternoon of August 21. Wind gusting to 40 mph spread the fire rapidly to the north and south of the ignition point, eventually consuming around 175000 acres before being mostly contained by August 30. At the height of the fire, Interstate 90 was closed for several hours to the east of Buffalo. Although no homes were lost in the fire, damage was extensive to ranch infrastructure with around 600 miles of fence burned along with the loss of storage and water tanks, outbuildings, feed., and equipment. Losses on private land alone were estimated by an unnamed source in the Green River Star local newspaper to be 25 million dollars, not including losses to public land and highway infrastructure. Have included this number as a preliminary damage cost estimate.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1212149. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.