STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Firefighters spent Monday afternoon trying to keep a new fire near Hailey from climbing to the ridge between Deer Creek and Greenhorn Gulch.

The JOLLY SAILOR FIRE was reported at 1 p.m. Monday, Aug. 27, burning in grass past Clarendon Hot Springs.

Forest Road 097 was closed at the forest boundary in Deer Creek as firefighters attacked the fire with five engines, three helicopters and three single-engine air tankers (SEATs).

The fire was estimated at 80 acres, but firefighters reported good progress was being made.

Forest Service and BLM personnel are on the scene. They expected burn scars from the Beaver Creek Fire to help control the fire.

Here’s a look at other fires in the area:

• Firefighters traded their hard hats for cowboy hats Monday on a 1,000-acre fire near Fairfield in order to rescue and moo-ve 200 head of cattle grazing out of a drainage where fire was predicted to spread.

The STEWART CREEK FIRE, which is 18 mile northwest of Fairfield, doubled in size and overran its perimeter Sunday. It was fueled by late afternoon gusts blowing between 35 and 40 miles per hour. The wind enabled the fire to burn into the drainage bottom of Bremner Creek where cattle were thought to be grazing between Bremner Creek and the South Fork of Lime Creek.

Assistant Incident Commander Keith Suemnick, a McCall smoke jumper, orchestrated a helicopter flight over the area to determine the exact location of the cattle. He then planned to work with Incident Commander Devin Hulme to figure out how to rescue the cattle with the aid of local ranchers.

Earlier, McCall smokejumpers assisted local sheepherders to rescue a flock of sheep, which resulted in a rash of Little Boo Peep jokes.

Helicopters have continued to drop buckets of water on the fire, while air tankers have dumped retardant. Helicopters also flew four new crews of firefighters to the camps, creating four camps on the lines each with about 50 firefighters.

Currently, 237 personnel are working the fire.

Firefighters are trying to keep the fire from hooking to the southwest where winds were blowing on Monday. Scouts also went on a reconnaissance mission trying to figure out the best natural fire breaks.

Minimal rain has fallen on the fire in the past couple days, but humidity levels have been between 49 percent and 51 percent, which helps with firefighting efforts.

The fire is 15 percent contained.

• The BIBLE BACK FIRE burning 11 miles northeast of Smiley Creek was aided by temperatures in the 40s and 50s, light rain and even a dusting of snow at higher elevations. Crews completed a containment line on the west side of the fire from Bible Back Mountain to Germania Creek to keep it from moving to the west.

  It has remained at 1,610 acres.

• Rain and colder temperatures helped slow the three-day-old WAPITI FIRE, which is 15 miles southwest of Stanley in the Grandjean area.

The fire, which destroyed four cabins and one outbuilding, remained at an estimated 6,190 acres on Monday.

Crews took advantage of the weather by building a fire line on the western flank and keeping the fire north of National Forest System Road 524 to protect cabins to the south.

“While we greatly appreciate this change in the weather, in just a few days we expect things to start drying out and warm up,” aid Lowman District Ranger John Kidd. “There is still a lot of summer left to go and this fire will be with us a while.”

There are 14 engines, six hand crews, three helicopters and three water tenders working the fire. They hope to contain it Oct. 1.