Early Wildfire Caused By Campfire

An escaped campfire is being blamed for a fire that burned about 1/10 of an acre on Bridger Teton National Forest at Sheep Mountain near the Gros Ventre drainage Tuesday.  Units from Teton Interagency Fire and Jackson Hole Fire/EMS responded to the Sheep Fire at about 9:30 Tuesday morning.  Forest Spokesperson Mary Cernicek admits, this is quite early in the year to be responding to a wildfire but it is not unheard of either.  Still, she says understory vegetation is protected from rain and snow by the upper canopy of the forest in some places, and fire can easily spread through the dry brush.  Fortunately, Cernicek says being opening day for that area of the forest, there were a lot of people out searching for antlers and the fire was quickly spotted and reported.  Once the fire was declared controlled at about 2:20 pm, firefighters hiked to another location where a fire had been reported and discovered another campfire that had been left unattended; but did not spread.  Cernicek says the fire danger on the Bridger Teton National Forest is currently considered low, but she cautions that this does not mean there is no fire danger.