Black Hills FOX reporter Brendyn Medina takes us to the fire lines for the story.  At around 7 o'clock Tuesday night, the Kinney Fire sat at about 100 acres, but as the sun rose over the Black Hills Wednesday morning, it had blown up to around 1,400.  Incident Commander Jason Virtue says, "We got to see some pretty aggressive fire behavior out there yesterday and then again, once we got later in the evening, conditions died down with the wind, the RH's went up and it was more favorable for us to go direct with our resources."  Crews got some relief as the cooler weather persisted throughout the afternoon.  Fire officials say their primary concern was to increase containment on both the east and north side of the fire.  Virtue says, "Right now the fuel conditions are so dry, some of the areas there was a jackpot of fuels that caught fire and the embers went outside the line. It didn't take much to start a new fire, so that's the emphasis today, was the aircraft support and the firefighters on the ground. We're trying to get the slop-overs put to bed."  Virtue says as much as Mother Nature worked to aid firefighters, rugged terrain throughout the fire area still made the use of air support all the more important.  Virtue says, "We're utilizing the helicopters and the air tankers. There are some areas where we're short on resources and so it buys us some time by putting the retardant down on the ground to slow down the fire spread and follow it up with firefighters."  Virtue says no structures have been harmed by the fire, and with warmer, dryer conditions in the forecast Thursday, he anticipates another long day of firefighting efforts in the Southern Hills.  For Black Hills FOX, I'm Brendyn Medina.  The Kinney Fire now sits at about 1,500 acres and 40 percent containment.  Fire managers expect 100 percent containment Thursday.

Brendyn Medina