Roaring Lion Fire Will Be Allowed to Burn in Wilderness

The Roaring Lion Fire is currently at about 60 percent containment, but Fire Information Officer Nathan Zalewski says that the amount of containment is unlikely to increase.

"The management philosophy that we're using for this fire is kind of a split philosophy, so typically fire managers will go for 100 percent containment, and that's great for fires that are sort of out in the public area, effecting a lot of resources or values at risk. [The Roaring Lion Fire], however, is half in the wilderness area and half in the rural-urban interface, where fires and structures are threatened."

The fire still burning in the wilderness area will be treated kind of like a controlled burn.

"For the portion of the fire that's in the wilderness area, we are using what's called a consignment strategy, we've located some geographic references and we're just going to try to keep the fire within those bounds, we are not necessarily going along the fires edge putting fire out. That way the wilderness area gets the ecological benefit of letting that fire burn; building new habitat for animals, plant species, stuff like that.,

Zalewski says that he expects the new type three management team that took over the fire yesterday evening to stay in place at least through the weekend.