'Fire season is here' as blazes ignite across Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin

'Fire season is here' as blazes ignite across Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin

A series of lightning-sparked wildfires in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin sent authorities scrambling Wednesday and Thursday, as one fire outside Thermopolis exploded to burn across 15,000 remote acres. That blaze, dubbed the Red Canyon Fire, drew an evacuation order from officials for an unknown number of rural homes in the area. The fire was burning in a very sparsely populated region of grass and scrub brush well east of Thermopolis itself, James Co…