DAYTON, WY — As the Elk Fire grew to nearly 50,000 acres in northern Wyoming Thursday, Sheridan County's School District 1 was moved to online learning for the foreseeable future amid class cancelations.
“We’ve got families in crisis. We have students that either need to help their families pack and get ready to evacuate – we have a lot of staff members who are actually in the fire department, up there, fighting," said Jeff Jones, the district's superintendent.
The wildfire was started by lightning on Sept. 7 near Dayton and is burning through rugged forest land near Tongue River High School.
"I live in California; so, I’m used to wildfires and the mountains are always up so high, we don’t really get to get that close," said Emmie Bowker, who was watching the fire from Tongue River High School.
Resources are said to have come from all across the country to aid in fighting the fire.
"We have an operations section chief that if you hear him talk, you know that he’s from the New England area," said Kristie Thompson with the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team.
Firefighters are working to protect places like the Mountain Inn Bar, a place with decades of history for Dayton and Denise Townsend, the bar's owner.
“It’s actually the last retail place before you get up onto the mountain," said Townsend, "It’s my life. It’s – it’s the only thing I have."
Jones said if the town were to be destroyed by fire, life would be on hold while residents came together to pick up the pieces.
“If something were to happen like that, where we lost our school, we lost our town – we would have much bigger issues to deal with in terms of coming together and helping each other out beyond math, science and social studies," said Jones.
