Well it is officially fire season. I am so glad I went to Glacier Park last week. The Orange glow of fires is now over everything. It is so funny, that technology can put something on our heads so we can play games without touching them, we have face recognition search and technology's that blow our mind, but we cannot come up with a way to put out a wildfire. I know fire fighters work hard. I have been on wild fires, however, there must be more modern techniques that would take the air from the fire, something...... Picture season is most likely over with last Friday's lightning strike fires in Lewiston, Kenniwick and Here in Northwest Montana. Oregon and Utah are on fire also. Some years fire season is not over until the snow comes to put them out or they hit a lake, fire jumps the creeks. Sometimes I think the fires are let go deliberately. The one you see to the left of Therriault Pass, was deliberate, it was set by lightning and easily put out but deliberately let go for economic reasons, I was there when they asked the crew to sit. This Orange glow has ruined my summer, not fun to swim or site see in this air and orange over everything. I hope the fires are out soon, but fear this is it for the summer, hope you enjoyed the fourth of july.....
4,400-acre wilderness fire on both sides of divideBy Melody Martinsen-Acantha editor
Hot dry weather conditions allowed the Fool Creek fire, burning in the wilderness on both sides of the Continental Divide, to grow to 4,400 acres by the evening of July 11. More fire activity was expected on July 12 as temperatures spiraled upward and the sky stayed cloudless.
As a precautionary measure, the U.S. Forest Service on July 12 activated water pumps at Wrong Creek Cabin on the Lewis and Clark National Forest, according to U.S. Forest Service Fire Information Officer Punky Moore. She said personnel are staged at both the Gooseberry Cabin and Sabido Cabin on the Flathead National Forest, clearing trails and providing information to the public regarding access. Structure protection materials are staged at cabins if necessary.
As part of contingency plans, personnel are pre-positioning structure protection materials in the Massey Creek Recreation Residence Tract, Teton Pass Ski Area and West Fork administrative facilities. Helicopters will be assisting with reconnaissance, dropping water on the south and east of the fire and when necessary transporting crews and equipment. A total of 43 people are assigned to the fire, including the fire-use management team and Rocky Mountain Ranger District District personnel coordinating with the team.
Fire managers and local Forest Service officials are working with Teton County officials to develop a Population Protection Plan. This plan will be in place, if needed, to ensure a safe and orderly evacuation and structure protection response if necessary.
Moore said that the fire was active on Wednesday after 1 p.m., mainly on the southwest edge of the fire in Open Creek, with some small runs to the east and towards the Continental Divide. Continuing warming and drying weather on Thursday was expected to increase fire behavior with torching and spotting out in front of the fire.
The Beartop Lookout detected the fire on the afternoon of July 4. Lightning maps showed that a number of strikes occurred in the area on June 28. The fire started in the Fool Creek drainage of the upper North Fork Sun River in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, approximately 36 miles west of Choteau, but located in Lewis and Clark County. The fire is under the jurisdiction of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, and the Flathead National Forest.
Shortly after the fire was detected, a fire management team analyzed the fire and put it into Wildland Fire Use status. The Forest Service monitors naturally-caused wilderness fires to allow fire to play a natural role in the ecosystem.
The decision to put the fire into Wildland Fire Use status was based on location and terrain, probability of spread, potential risk to life, safety and property, and potential risk to resource values. Moore said the fire started in an area of heavy, continuous timber and relatively little access. Safety zones and escape routes for ground personnel were nonexistent, while threats to social, natural, and cultural resources were minimal, she said.
The Northern Rockies fire-use management team, in cooperation with Rocky Mountain Ranger District and Flathead National Forest personnel, is working on a long-term management plan for the fire. The plan will guide management actions as long as the fire is burning -- a duration that Rocky Mountain District Ranger Mike Munoz estimates might not end until October. "We are going to have to be in this one for the long haul," he said.
Managers are assessing firefighter safety and risks to resources and values, such as potential threats to structures or important recreation sites in order to develop this plan. Management actions are identified in the plan that will be taken when fire reaches predetermined areas. Managers will also evaluate the benefits of fire, such as improving habitat and creating fuel breaks that will moderate future fire behavior, and will document those in the long-term plan. The Fire Use Management Team is working closely with the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Flathead National Forest, Teton County Sheriff's Office, Teton County Rural Volunteer Fire Department and Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation in the management of the fire.
The Lewis and Clark Fire Use Module, a six-person crew with specialized training in on-site management of wildland fire use, worked from the Wrong Creek Cabin Monday to gather information on fuels and fire behavior that will assist managers in long-term planning. The crew also cleared deadfall from existing trails to improve potential escape routes and maintained structure protection at Wrong Creek Cabin and protection for two stock bridges south of the cabin.
A two person trail crew on Monday also worked from the Wrong Creek Cabin, and a crew of six has completed structure protection at Gooseberry Cabin on the Flathead National Forest, and met another two-person crew with pack string to take structure protection materials to Sabido Cabin, also on the Flathead.
Late last week, personnel wrapped the Wrong Creek Cabin in fire-protecting material as a precautionary measure.
Several trails have been closed for public safety in the fire area. Those trails include: North Fork Sun River Trail (#110) from the junction with Route Creek Trail (#108) to Sun River Pass; Open Fork Trail (#116) in its entirety; Monroe Creek Trail (#188) in its entirety; Wrong Ridge Trail (#187) in its entirety; Washboard Reef Trail (#117) from the wilderness boundary to junction with Trail #108; Sun River Pass Trail (Flathead National Forest) from Sun River Pass north to junction with Bowl Creek Trail (FNF #324) at Grizzly Park.
For more specific trail closure information and maps, forest users can go to the InciWeb site (
http://inciweb.org), the Flathead National Forest Web site (
http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/flathead) or contact the Rocky Mountain Ranger District Office, 406-466-5341, or the Spotted Bear Ranger District Office, 406-758-5376.
Munoz said the fire is burning in one of the more remote areas in terms of public use. Typically, the area gets quite a few hikers on the Continental Divide trail, and they are now being rerouted, he said.
He said the district also rerouted some summer outfitter trips to the south of this area and asked some campers north of Sun River Pass in the Grizzly Park area to relocate for safety reasons.
Munoz said fire conditions on the forest remain high. The Rocky Mountain Ranger District has received low snowpack for the past several years and that has allowed the 1,000-hour fuels, those more than eight to 10 inches in diameter, to reach very dry points with some having just 18 percent moisture now when usually that point is not reached until August. Additionally, spring green-up has left a wealth of fine fuels that can help carry fires through the forest.
Munoz said the Forest Service at first was not able to mount any type of attack to slow or redirect the fire because it was burning intensely in dense timber with miles of continuous fuels with no safety zones or staging sights.
Now that the fire has expanded and burned into the 2000 McDonald II fire region, the Forest Service has been able to use helicopter bucket work to reduce intensity and slow the fire's advance.
The fire is also burning in the same area as the 1998 Bowl Creek Fire and the 1988 Gates Park fire, each old burn offering different possible responses to the fire.
Land managers are starting to talk about forest-use restrictions, but none are in effect right now, Munoz said. Forest Service managers are asking campers and hikers to have buckets and shovels available and to put campfires out cold to the touch before they leave them.
7/12/07
"We had over one thousand fires the last four days, burned several hundred thousand acres, a number of structures damaged or lost..." So said Marc Rounsaville, the Fire Service agency's Deputy Director for fire and aviation management in Washington. And harried forest officials are talking about a relatively new term -- AMR, appropriate management response. The AMR determination could decide an all-out effort to fight a given fire, or simply to monitor it, or some effort in between.How many acres get burned while AMR is being mulled over is up to the computers and a series of informational tools to try to determine, among other factors, what's at risk in the fire area...................................................
BE SAFE OUT THERE FOLKS....
