Smoke rises from a wildfire near Townsend, Mont., Tuesday, July 21, 2015.

Babb resident Greg Fullerton, who co-owns Glacier County Honey Co. with his wife, has been watching the fire from U.S. Highway 89.

The fire started Tuesday afternoon near Grizzly Point, approximately six miles east of Logan Pass.

The park also announced that St. Mary Campground, which has 148 camp sites, is being evacuated, which followed the evacuation Tuesday evening of The Rising Sun Motor Inn, operated by Glacier National Park Lodges, and the Rising Sun Campground.

Wildfires in recent weeks have raged across several states in the drought-parched U.S. West.

The closure of the Going-to-the-Sun Road was extended along the 50-mile, two-lane alpine roadway from the St. Mary entrance in the east to the Big Bend pullout on the western side of the Continental Divide.

These evacuations include the St. Mary Visitor Center and National Park Service administrative area.

One vehicle was burned on Going-to-the-Sun Road during Tuesday afternoon’s blowup.

The rest of Glacier National Park, which lies in northwestern Montana along the Canadian border, remains open to the public but officials have said the fire was burning in heavy timber with a high potential to spread. This warning means that critical fire weather conditions are anticipated, including strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures, factors contributing to the rapid fire growth.

Park officials were helping tourists retrieve their cars Wednesday, while rangers searched the backcountry for any remaining hikers after the blaze doubled in size overnight to more than 3 square miles. A Glacier County sheriff’s dispatcher said she did not know how many people were included in the evacuation order. It was likely human-caused, officials said.

A temporary flight restriction was imposed over the fire area and additional resources were expected to arrive Wednesday to help deal with the blaze. The road, an engineering marvel, spans 50 miles through the park’s wild interior, winding around mountainsides and treating visitors to some of the best sights in Montana.

The Reynolds Creek Fire serves as the latest reminder of that incendiary influence as it burns over 2,000 acres in the St. Mary area. Two campgrounds and a day-use area also have been closed.

There’s still no word on the cause of the fire.