Evidence on Four Mile Fire points to arson

Police crime-scene banners block near the area off Four Mile Road where investigators suspect an arsonist set the Four Mile Fire, which burned more than 2,200 acres by Tuesday night. (Dick Kettlewell, Journal staff)

State wildland fire coordinator Joe Lowe said evidence at the site on Four Mile Draw Road, where the fire originated, indicated a set fire.

The state Division of Criminal Investigation and the Custer County Sheriffs Department are investigating.

The fire started shortly after 1 p.m. Monday. Investigators are hoping witnesses will come forward. (See the box.)

By late Tuesday, the fire had burned 2,220 acres, but it was 65 percent contained.

Im extremely pleased with our progress today, said Lowe, who also heads the Rapid City-based Northern Great Plains Management Team, which is in charge of fighting the fire. If the weather holds, we should have the fire fully contained by late tomorrow.

The battle went well Tuesday.

Antelope, mule deer and buffalo continued to graze calmly as a steady stream of fire traffic ran up and down the Wildlife Loop Road, which was closed to tourists.

With temperatures peaking at a relatively cool 70 degrees under gray skies, and with the winds mostly light, firefighters were able to establish hand lines and bulldozer lines around parts of the fire.

From above, a small squadron of aircraft - helicopters and air tankers - dropped fire-retardant gel on or near the hottest spots.

The fire, named for Four Mile Draw Road, is in the southwestern quadrant of the park, southeast of Blue Bell Lodge and northwest of the Buffalo Corrals. The fire burned on both sides of the Wildlife Loop Road, east of S.D. Highway 87.

The Wildlife Loop, Highway 87 and other roads in the fire area remained closed Tuesday.

No structures had burned as of late Tuesday, there had been no injuries, and many acres were singed just enough to clear underbrush.

Some fire is good, Gov. Mike Rounds said at the fire headquarters at the Buffalo Corrals, just before he toured the fire area.

However, timber was destroyed where the fire burned hot, and much of the park was evacuated, including Blue Bell Lodge and the French Creek Horse Camp, interrupting the vacation plans of hundreds of visitors.

The cost of fighting the fire will be at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Lowe said the fire was discovered about 1:15 p.m. Monday during a routine aerial survey after lightning storms passed through the area.

It could have been a lot worse, state fire management officer Jim Strain said, if the smoke had not been spotted early. A small single-engine air tanker hit the fire early, slowing it down.

High winds Monday night, however, fanned a 500-acre fire to more than 1,500 acres by early morning.

Gwen Lipp who worked on the fire all night Monday as a dozer boss, said the lack of moisture in ponderosa pines in the park worried firefighters.

Lipp is a fuels technician with the Hell Canyon Ranger District of the Black Hills National Forest, which means shes an expert on what wildfires burn. She said satellite imagery last week showed the relative greenness of the foothills of the southern black hills was far below the average.

After a briefing from firefighters, Gov. Rounds warned reporters, If were going to have fires in our state right now, its going to be in the Southern Hills.

Tuesday night, firefighters were standing guard near Blue Bell Lodge, but the fire did not threaten the State Game Lodge, Legion Lake or other facilities in the northern part of the park.

Some parts of the northern Black Hills are above average in green-ness, Lipp said, but fire danger remains very high to extreme throughout much of the Black Hills region  -- especially on prairies and in the southern Black Hills.

And even though cool weather was predicted Tuesday night, Strain noted that warm and cool breezes intermingled late Tuesday afternoon, suggesting conflicting air masses. Anytime you have that in a area of a fire, its not good, he said.