Fire breaks out in Keystone again

A fire reported at 2:43 p.m. Dec. 17 roared to life two miles east of Keystone town limits. Named the Greyhound Fire, the blaze grew to 166 acres in an area locals refer to as Government Field, a local gun range, on Hwy. 40. The fire moved east and those along Hwy. 40 between Playhouse Road and Rushmore Ranch Road were in a set to evacuate stage as emergency responders worked on the scene. 

Numerous agencies responded with as many as 15-20 engines and two Hot Shot crews working on the fire. Battle Creek, Rockerville and Hill City all responded locally with the latter noting on Facebook it had sent four trucks and 11 personnel and had put in 94 man hours working the fire.  

Locally, a team of volunteers including Sandi McLain, Nikki Ball, Kristy Nemetz, Karen Boland, Cameron Conaway and Amber Fullilove made sandwiches for firefighters paid for by business owner Casey McNulty. McNulty is the town board president and updated residents about the fire via numerous Facebook posts.

Residents in the area were being directed to the Pennington County Public Safety Hub webpage, created in response to two fires in 2021. The page never alerted any resident to evacuate, but Dustin Willett, Pennington County Emergency Management director, confirms two households were evacuated  by sheriff's deputies who made a boots on the ground decision that was never communicated to Willett’s office. The decision by those law enforcement officials was in response to a burning out building, Willett said. 

“Some pieces slipped through the cracks,” he noted, saying there were people in the field who were “not familiar with the plan.” 

He added, “We have  training to do.” 

He said despite a slight amount of confusion the response went “relatively smoothly.”

There was also confusion for some residents on Metz Road, who had been evacuated by a fire this spring and were included on the hub map as being in the set zone for this fire but were not included in the written description. Willett said most often fires are described by landmarks and roads, but that his office was responsible for drawing the box on the map that did not indicate street names. Willett said that was another good take away his office will fix.

Willett said overall the emergency hub was created because people are “largely self-sufficient if you give them the resources.”

He said the challenge for his team is to get real time, vetted information, which his team worked feverishly to do. 

“If we can keep people informed, people can self-manage,” Willett said, which “reduces the demand on professional rescuers.”

He praised all the responding agencies, as well as Keystone residents and officials. 

“When things happen it’s a comfort to know we’ve got such good people,” he said. 

He praised all the small communities. 

“No one wants to see calamity happen. There is no truer testament to the season,” Willett said, than the “phenomenal communities taking care of their own.”

A brief rain aided the efforts of first responders and the the threat of evacuation was lifted at about 10 p.m. Firefighters remained in the area through Dec. 19, focusing on strengthening containment lines, securing the perimeter and monitoring for any remaining hotspots. The fire is under investigation.