First Thunder Fire update: Crews are working to slow it down

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KELO) — The First Thunder Fire has now increased from 150 to 155 acres overnight.

Crews have been working around the clock, and are expecting their containment percentage to jump up by the end of the next shift.

This wildfire has slowed down, only growing 5 acres over the past day with firefighters in the air helping to cut it off.

“Especially when you have difficult terrain, you know, areas that it’s hard to get firefighters into quickly. The retardant, essentially what it does is it slows the spread of the fire and it also kind of builds a bit of a containment line to try to keep the spread of the fire in check,” Air Tanker Base Manager Jarrod Hattervig said.

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“The aircraft helped out immensely with the four air tankers, the four helicopters dropping a retardant line on the north because this is Rapid Creek down here so the north lot and the east side of the fire where it was really inaccessible. We did a lot of retardant drops,” Incident Commander Brandon Sanchez said.

The Pennington County Sheriff’s Office still wants everyone in the area to be prepared.

“So again right now we’re not doing any evacuations and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a need for any evacuations. However, whenever there’s an incident like this we always just ask people to be prepared just in case that time may come,” Patrol Lieutenant Jason Mitzel said.

With such a large area involved in this fire, it’s all hands on deck.

“The logistics of fighting a fire, I mean, there’s so much going on. Of course, there’s boots on the ground and everybody doing work on the ground. Then behind the scenes with everything going on at the dispatch center and us and all the aircraft, there’s so much coordination over the fire,” Hattervig said.

“More resources on scene. We got two type one hand crews, hotshot crews. We got another type two I-8 crew with multiple engines so they showed up. As soon as they showed up we got them briefed up and thrown out on the line. We got those people, the other resources that have been out there all night, off the line,” Sanchez said.

Currently, there are more than 150 people working to contain the fire.

Crews have been getting assistance from Mother Nature this afternoon as rainfall pushed through the area today. KELOLAND News will keep you updated as more information comes through.