BLM lifted Stage 1 fire restrictions in six Wyoming counties, and Natrona County is split between two districts

Campfires are legal again on BLM land across most of the Bighorn Basin and the Wind River country as of September 23. If you are in Natrona County, the answer depends on which BLM district owns the ground, and the county line will not tell you.

The signed termination, read September 26, 2026, ends the prohibitions in Fire Prevention Orders BLM-WY-010-2026-01, BLM-WY-020-2026-01 and BLM-WY-050-2026-01 “applicable to BLM-administered public lands within the Wind River Bighorn Basin District boundaries of, Big Horn, Hot Springs, Park, Washakie, Fremont, and Natrona counties.” It was executed in Worland under 43 CFR 9212. The district’s announcement the same day names the same six counties.

Read the scope clause twice. It terminates orders inside the Wind River/Big Horn Basin District boundaries, not inside the six counties.

What came off

The Stage 1 list. The Worland Field Office order, BLM-WY-010-2026-01, verified September 26, banned “building, maintaining, attending or using a fire or campfire except within agency-provided fire grates at developed recreation sites, or within fully enclosed stoves with a ¼” spark arrester type screen, or within fully enclosed grills, or in stoves using pressurized liquid or gas.” It also required a cleared three-foot circle to smoke in, an arrester plus extinguisher plus 36-inch shovel to run a chainsaw, and a cleared 10-foot circle to weld in. Those stopped applying on September 23.

Natrona County sits on a district line

The Casper Field Office runs a separate Stage 1 order, BLM-WY-060-2026-01, read September 26, covering “Natrona, Converse, Goshen, and Platte Counties, beginning March 25, 2026.” Casper is High Plains District. It was not terminated and it is still posted.

So Natrona County appears on both documents. Neither is wrong: the September 23 termination reaches Wind River/Big Horn Basin ground in Natrona County, and the Casper order still governs Casper Field Office ground in the same county. Which one applies to your site is a question about district boundaries, not counties. Call the field office before you build a fire there.

One detail worth noticing: BLM’s own page labels the Casper link “All Counties.” The signed order says four.

Still posted statewide

Newcastle (Crook, Weston and Niobrara, May 2026), Buffalo (Johnson and Campbell, March 2026) and Casper, all High Plains District. The Wyoming year-round order never lifts: no fireworks, no incendiary or tracer ammunition, no burning tires or wire or magnesium, no off-road vehicle without a properly installed spark arrester under 43 CFR 8343.1(c), and no explosives or exploding targets.

Read the document, not the number

BLM Wyoming issued two different orders numbered BLM-WY-010-2026-01 this year. One is the Worland Stage 1 order above. The other is the Pinedale Field Office’s Bare Fire area closure, issued August 7 and rescinded August 24. Different district, different document, same number. Checking a restriction by number alone can land you on the wrong one.

Open BLM Wyoming’s fire restrictions page and read the PDF for the field office you are actually in. BLM says its own dashboard is being replaced by the Rocky Mountain Area Interagency Fire Restriction Dashboard, covering Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. County and state rules are set separately, and the sign posted at the site beats every website, this one included. Stay limits for the surrounding BLM land and forests are on our Wyoming free camping page.