After a week of intense firefighting, the nearly 600-acre wildfire on Blue Mountain has reached full containment.

According to Bob Kurilla, spokesman for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the fire that began last Saturday near the Appalachian Trail and Route 248 is “100% contained,” although crews will remain on-site throughout the weekend for monitoring and further containment measures.

“We don’t expect it to get out of there. It’ll stay at 577 acres,” Kurilla confirmed Friday. “The fire is still going to smoke for several days, but there’s nothing that’s going to threaten any of our control lines.”

Kurilla said firefighters had fortified the perimeter, making sure the blaze could not spread further despite the challenging drought conditions.

Deep burning due to drought conditions

Kurilla noted that the dry conditions created a “small, slow, deep burn,” which allowed the fire to penetrate into the “duff layer,” a dense layer of decayed organic matter below the forest floor.

“It’s consuming everything,” he said, adding that the fire can smolder deep into root systems and leaf litter until it reaches the mineral soil below. “These fires are just so dry due to the drought we’re in now.”

Because of these deep burn patterns, smoke is expected to linger for days, even with the recent progress in containment. Kurilla confirmed that crews would continue patrolling the area over the weekend, with the goal of containing any flare-ups.

“There’s no reason to believe any containment or any control problems will pop up at this point,” he said, “but we’re still going to keep people out there … mopping up a little bit more here and there.”

Red flag warnings

The containment announcement came amid a red flag warning issued for the area due to continued dry, windy conditions.

“They put a red flag warning in till six o’clock this evening,” Kurilla said Friday, referring to warnings triggered when low humidity, warm temperatures, and high winds combine to create dangerous fire conditions. “Today’s down in the 20s percent (humidity). And you know, temperatures are warm, not as warm as yesterday, but we’re in the upper 60s. But winds are steady at least 15 mph, and gust to 30s, so that’s pretty stiff at times.”

While Kurilla assured that the containment lines were holding strong on the Blue Mountain fire, he cautioned that these conditions mean other fires could start easily. “It’s not a concern on the gap fire,” he said, “but anywhere else, you get a new start, and it could really take off … especially if it’s in a bad place. It can grow quite large again.”

Handover to local management

As of Friday afternoon, the firefighting efforts on Blue Mountain transitioned from a DCNR incident management team to the William Penn Forest District’s local team. While rain is forecast for Sunday, the area may only see about a quarter to two-thirds of an inch of rainfall, which Kurilla warned would likely be insufficient to fully extinguish the risk of flare-ups.

“If we get what’s forecast, that’ll buy us a day or two maybe,” he said, adding, “But within 24 to 48 hours, we’ll be back into high fire danger again.”

To fully extinguish the risk, the region would need “1 to 2 inches of rain,” Kurilla said.

Ongoing investigation

Although the fire is contained, an investigation is underway to determine its cause. Kurilla confirmed that investigators have been working on-site to identify the origin of the fire, though the official cause has not yet been determined.

“We’ve had Bureau of Forestry investigators up on the fire area,” he said. “At some point the origin and cause of the fire will be able to be revealed.”

Gratitude

The Lehigh Township Fire Company on Wednesday expressed their gratitude in a post to the community on Facebook.

“We would like to extend a wholehearted thank you to the many many businesses and private individuals that donated food, money, warm clothing, beverages, gear and personal hygiene materials to the hundreds of firefighters and overhead staff working the Gap Fire on the Blue Mountain between Slatington and Palmerton,” the post states. “We even received a pile of handmade thank you cards from Miss Sydney Warner’s kindergarten class.”

The “unprecedented outpouring of kindness and support from the local community,” the department said, was unlike anything they had seen. “Nothing,” the post said, “has ever compared to this.