The Eagle Eye Fire, burning since early Tuesday morning 14 miles northwest of Crawford in the Oglala National Grasslands, is now 60% contained at 345 acres. More accurate mapping added 5 acres to the total late yesterday
. The U-S Forest Service and the Crawford and Harrison Volunteer Fire Departments are managing the fire under a unified command structure and say crews worked hard yesterday to improve firelines and “mop-up” inside the perimeter.
As a result, all aerial assets have been released for assignment to higher priority fires in the region and all local volunteer resources have been released to rest and retool.
Engines from the National Park Service, Nebraska National Forest, Black Hills National Forest, and Nebraska Game and Parks plus a crew from the State of South Dakota continued to improve lines and mop up today
Lightning is listed as the cause of the fire, which is southwest of Hudson-Meng and north of Eagles Eye Rock, a popular climbing site in Sioux County.
It’s an area that also burned in the Douthit Fire in 2012, and Pine Ridge District Ranger Tim Buskirk says the Eagle Eye Fire probably did more good than bad because of it.
Buskirk says the fire did ”a good job of cleaning up the dead and downed timber (from the Douthit Fire), reducing the fire hazard in the future and greatly improving the availability and quality of forage for livestock and wildlife in the future.”