A lightning strike Tuesday near the entrance to Death Canyon started the first forest fire of the 2007 season in Grand Teton National Park.

The Death Canyon Fire is burning in scattered trees, grasses and brush on a cliff face on one-tenth of an acre about a quarter mile above Phelps Lake. The first fire in Grand Teton National Park last year started near Moose Boat Landing on June 26.

Grand Teton spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs said the fire poses no danger to any buildings and will be allowed to burn.

“This one [fire] is right on the boundary to where we would have suppression or treat it as a wildland fire,” Skaggs said. “It’s up on a cliff band above the trail and prevailing winds would drive it north into other rock bands.”

Skaggs said the trees in the area are sparse. The lack of vegetation, plus weather projections for moisture and cooler temperatures expected during the next week, make the Death Canyon Fire a “perfect” candidate for management under the park’s wildland fire use objective, which allows natural fires to burn to benefit park ecosystems.

This is the sixth small fire in the region this year. Yellowstone National Park has seen two lightning-caused fires since April. In Bridger-Teton National Forest, the human-caused Sheep Creek Fire in Curtis Canyon flared up May 13 and was extinguished. The Big Piney District in Sublette County has seen two lightning-caused fires: the Memorial Day Fire on May 27 and the Irene Fire, which started Monday.  

In 2006, the first fire in Bridger-Teton National Forest started May 15.

“There’s no such thing as normal anymore,” Bridger-Teton spokeswoman Mary Cernicek said. “Had these fires sparked three weeks later, we’d be talking about a whole different scenario.

“We have lots of dead and down fuel in this part of Wyoming,” she said. “Our snowpack came off pretty quick. It’s ripe for burning.”

Cernicek said this year the Forest Service likely will start reminding people about fire safety earlier than usual because of the dry conditions.

“To have three fires on the Bridger-Teton already,” she said, “... is probably a good indicator of what’s to come.”  

The fire danger Thursday was considered moderate.