Crews plan for the future as Holiday Farm Fire reaches 96% containment

Work to reach 100 percent containment on the holiday farm fire...they're also*downsizing and scaling back quite a bit.

Which is good news -- because that means we're that much closer to moving to the*next phase.

Kezi 9 news reporter connor mccarthy was there when the intial fire broke out over a month ago -- and as he shows us -- crews have come a*long way.

As holiday farm fire victims start picking up what's left of their communities.... fire officials are preparing for complete containment.

Connor: " just weeks ago this field behind me at thurston middle school was like a small city hundreds of firefighters were living here at the incicent command post but with this field empty, officials here say the fire is close to being contained."

"we've come really close to reaching containment or other objectives like suspension and repair we scaled back our operations quite a bit."

Incident commander joel hessel says there are now two 20 person crews working the fire-- making containement a little bit slower but still reachable here in a few weeks.

"with a smaller group with a more focused effort.

It will take a little bit longer to close the gap to get to that final 100 percent."

Hessel says more operations will transfered back to local forestry districts.

He says the local units will clear more hazards from roads and look to possible re- forestation efforts.

"i'd say with in the next two to three weeks it'll be hard to find anybody wearing a yellow shirt if mother nature helps us out a bit."

Hessel says--even when 100 percent containment is reached-- it doesn't mean the fire are is inactive.

"we might call something contained because the perimeter is secure, but the interior of the fire may still have smoke and heat through the winter."

Coming up on kezi nine news at 11-- you'll hear how the holiday farm fire-- and other massive fires across the state has ushered in a new kind of prepardeness for these disasters.

Reporting in springfield connor mccarthy