Fire crews gained ground on Tuesday against a nearly week-old wildfire that has torched more than two dozens buildings and charred hundreds of square miles of Montana prairie and is currently the biggest fire burning in the United States.
By Tuesday evening, a firefighting force consisting of 650 personnel had managed to carve buffer lines around 36 percent of the blaze’s perimeter, up from a containment level of 20 percent reported earlier in the day, fire officials said.
Enough progress was made that authorities on Tuesday lifted evacuation orders that had been in place for about 50 property owners since late last week, fire command spokesman Tim Engrav said.
Cattle are seen near the flames of the Lodgepole Complex fire in Garfield County, Montana, U.S. July 21, 2017. BLM/Pete McFadden/Handout via Reuters
