Visitors were allowed to drive across the park Tuesday for the first time in more than a week.
As conditions permit over the next few days, officials plan more ``burnouts'' or backfires on the western side of the 24,000-acre wildfire. However, none will be as dramatic as the 2,000-acre backfire credited with turning the fire away from West Glacier, which was evacuated last week when flames threatened a major escape route.
Still, ``people will be seeing smoke on the western side,'' fire information officer Bill Beebe said Wednesday.
Crews also continued work to steer the fire away from critical habitat for grizzly bears.
The fire is one of three major blazes in and around the national park that had blackened about 70,000 acres by Wednesday.
Elsewhere, lightning storms started more than 40 wildfires early Wednesday in the Okanogan and Wenatchee national forests of eastern Washington. The largest had spread across 300 acres of grass by midmorning, Forest Service spokeswoman Robin DeMario said.
Washington's largest fire, about four miles from the Canadian border, had charred 77,000 acres since starting June 29 and was 60 percent contained, officials said.
Large fires also were active Wednesday in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming, the National Interagency Fire Center said. So far this year, wildfires have blackened nearly 1.9 million acres, compared to 4.6 million at this same time last year, the center reported.
