Evacuation Status Change Near Sapphire Complex, Goat Creek Fire Burns Down to Road
The evacuation status has changed for a number of homes that are in the vicinity of the Sapphire Complex burning east of Missoula near Rock Creek.
"There is an update for the evacuations in the south Rock Creek drainage, The evacuation order for Stony Creek south to Kyle Bohrnsen Memorial Bridge has been changed to YELLOW," said Fire Information Officer Anna Callahan. "Essentially, RED is a mandatory evacuation and YELLOW is a pre-evacuation notice."
Callahan says the fire grew nearly 2000 acres on Tuesday when the evacuations were ordered,
"They just wanted to be extra cautious with where they were evacuating and after reevaluating today they decided to downgrade the evacuation on the south side," Callahan said. "There are several areas that have structures and residences in them, the Goat Creek Fire has burned down to the road and there are residences right where they are constructing line."
The Sapphire Complex consists of three fires. Right now, the Goat Creek fire is at just over 40 percent containment, the Sliderock fire is at about 20 percent containment, but the Little Hogback fire is where most of the fire growth has been this week and it is still at zero percent containment. All together the fires have burned over 12,000 acres.