Red Flag forecast puts Hayden Fire residents, crews on edge

As though the endless grey smoke plume was not worrisome enough, a town hall meeting Friday night gave residents in Fremont County new reason to worry.

A meteorologist at the meeting warned residents that red flag conditions on Saturday could push the Hayden Pass fire in new and unexpected directions.

Geoffrey Earhart, who saw his home Friday for the first time since evacuations were ordered, says not knowing was the worst part.

“It was important to go home,” Earhart told Newschannel 13’s Katie Spencer at Friday’s meeting, “put my own eyes on my belongings.”

Evacuees who live on CR-6, CR-40 and in the Fox Creek subdivision were given access to their homes for about two hours Friday morning.

But Earhart and his fellow evacuees also got the word that their brief visit home was probably the last they’ll get for awhile.

The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office says it may be weeks before evacuations are lifted, a timeline that has a lot to do with that shifting weather forecast.

“We expect to see a different kind of fire behavior than we’ve been seeing,” says Christopher Redmond, an incident meteorologist with the U.S forest Service, “It’ll be a true test of the fire lines.”

Jim Pitts, a U.S. Forest Service Ranger adds, “[Conditions] will be the worst we’ve seen in the last three or four days.”

After the meeting, KRDO Newschannel 13 spoke to the Forest Service about planes equipped with infrared optics.

There have been some public critics who speculate that using such planes may have stopped the fire before it could grow out of control, but the Forest Service spokesman says that’s simply not the case.

He says even had they launched an infrared survey back on day one, the rugged terrain and remote location of the fire would have made an early attack all but impossible.