Pretty much can guarantee there will be crews and equipment on the Zermatt Fire all night long cleaning up hot spots and improving the depth of the fire line surrounding the incident. Couple things to watch for....the smell of smoke will be strong in our valley depending on the winds. Pretty normal. Second, there will be hot spots flaring up throughout the night that will be visible to many. Many of these will be in the middle of the burn....not a factor to fire escaping and will be allowed to burn out. Some fire may be put on the ground to clean up some areas that still have unburned fuels and they might glow a bit more. All of this is pretty standard operating procedure and nothing to worry about. If you feel that you are seeing something that is not what I've described or you are really worried, call 911 and the nice person will contact the Incident Commander to investigate what you see or smell.
We definitely dodged a bullet once again and no structures were lost due to having the right equipment and trained personnel to respond immediately. Our resident crew at Station 14 did an amazing job of assessing what they had and getting the right equipment and personnel from multiple agencies on the way. Thankfully, there were aircraft and sufficient resources not committed to other fires to get around this one. Thankful too that no one was injured....civilian or firefighter.
