Simmons family hoping Elk Fire doesn’t take historic mountain camp

The exploding Elk Fire in the Tongue Ranger District of the Bighorn National Forest has a Cowley family sitting on pins and needles this week.

Todd and Emily Simmons have seen the fire threaten the historic Willow Hollow camp they purchased two years ago after the facility operated as Camp Bethel for many years.

The Simmons family purchased Camp Bethel in July of 2022 and recently wrapped up the third summer with the camp. Todd Simmons said Willow Hollow specializes in gatherings for youth and church groups, with organizations able to rent the facility for a half week, full week or weekend. The camp is also available for family reunions and other special events.

There are around 160 beds, with room on the grounds for tent camping, as well.

The Elk Fire ignited on Friday, Sept. 27, northeast of Burgess Junction after a lightning strike and grew rapidly in the tinder dry forest. By Monday, Sept. 30, the fire had grown to 22,000 acres, already the largest fire in the Bighorn National Forest in recorded history.

And then Simmons received a call late that Monday morning.

“I received a call from the Forest Service asking if anybody was at the camp,” Simmons said. “I said no, and she said good, because Highway 14 (from Burgess Junction to Dayton) was about to be closed. There would be no further access, and they wanted to make sure nobody was left at the camp.”

Simmons said he asked if he could have access to Willow Hollow to remove items and see to the structures and ground. He was told no, and a back-and-forth series of conversations ensued over the next two days.

Finally, Simmons was told he could be escorted to the camp on Thursday, Oct. 3, at 1 p.m. for 15 minutes to remove essential items.

“I was told 15 minutes and asked for more,” he said. “I was given 30, and it ended up being an hour. It (the communication) wasn’t very clear.

“It was very smokey (at the camp), like a foggy day.”

Simmons arrived with a truck and trailer and two helpers. They removed camp records, site plans, utility maps, certificates, documents, drawing and other irreplaceable items. They then turned to any high dollar items they could fit onto the truck and trailer such as TVs, audio-visual equipment and three canoes.

“We got very little out of the camp compared to what’s there,” Simmons said, noting that items like tables, beds and chairs had to be left behind.

Meanwhile, a Forest Service crew of 20 worked to remove brush and other vegetative material from around the camp. By Thursday, the fire had grown to nearly 50,000 acres.

Community meeting

Simmons then attended a Dayton community meeting at Tongue River Middle School in Ranchester Sunday evening in the wake of a cold front that struck the region overnight Friday into Saturday, with high winds of up to 50 miles per hour expanding the fire to 62,000 acres and pushing the blaze nearly to Dayton and burning two homes.

The briefing included personnel from several agencies including the Sheridan County Sheriff’s office, county engineer, the Forest Service and the incident commander. Simmons said the hour-long meeting reviewed the current status of the fire and the outlook and planned strategies for fighting the blaze, with an emphasis on evacuation. Attendees were then able to speak individually with personnel from the various agencies.

“That was a huge mental step forward,” Simmons said, noting that he was able to speak to Forest resource officer Cordell Perkins about questions he had, preparations in the area and what to expect. Perkins arranged an escort for Simmons to check out the situation at the camp, and Simmons informed officials that he had already shut off the power and the camp propane tanks.

“There had been very little communication until then,” Simmons said. “He was Heaven sent. For once we received really clear answers to our questions.”

Simmons was escorted up U.S. 14 to the camp Sunday night, with the fire burning on both sides of the highway.

“It was pretty wild,” he said. “There was a lot of red glowing on the horizon. It was an eerie feeling.”

Simmons said the Forest Service had installed pumpkin tanks at the camp, large inflatable pools that hold thousands of gallons of water. Large hoses from the tanks were run down main roads and trails at the camp, branching off with smaller lines to surround each structure with a sprinkler system.

The tanks are in place should the fire threaten the camp, and Simmons said the Forest Service also bulldozed a fire line all around the camp. If the fire approaches the camp, the pumpkin tank pumps will be activated while firefighters battle the blaze, and the pumps can be left on if the fire crew is forced to leave the camp.

Current situation

As of Tuesday, the Elk Fire had grown to more than 74,000 acres, and the fire line was about two miles to the northeast of Willow Hollow.

“When the fire was crowning in heavy timber, it was spreading at 14 miles per hour, so that would be less than 10 minutes from the camp (if it happened near Willow Hollow),” Simmons said. “It held up at the Tongue River, which is a natural fire break, except that it breached the river in two spots and was starting to come up Cutler Hill. It’s all fuel from there to the camp.

“It’s been a roller coaster of emotions for the last week. We just go hour by hour, but we’re still hopeful.”

Record-setting blaze

Simmons said Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson said at the community meeting that, in the 100-plus-year history of the Bighorn National Forest, the previous largest fire was 18,000 acres, and it took a month to grow that large. This week, as the fire approaches 80,000 acres, the fire has grown sometimes in one day more than the previous record fire reached in one month.

There are more than 800 personnel fighting the blaze this week, and the fire was listed as 10 percent contained.

“That’s an unprecedented number of people it’s taking to get ahead of this fire,” Simmons noted.