The Big Sandy area has had some wildfires in the last several weeks. However, at the time of this writing, all have been put out with little damage. Most of the fires were caused by things catching fire in fields.
That is not true in the rest of the state. One newspaper last week had a headline that said that to date the State of Montana has spent 21 million dollars in putting out wild fires with no hope for stopping other fires until September or even October. That 21 million dollars is going to fight fires that as of last week have burned over 578 square miles which represents at the present time 20 large fires of which nine of them are burning in a triangle between Phillipsburg, Superior and Seeley Lake.
In some places the smoke has been and is so thick that people are being warned to stay indoors whenever possible.
The fires in that area are caused by drought. Consider this. In the month of July Missoula has not been that dry since 1893.
This fire season started with a bang when wildfires broke out in the Little Rockies. Then a portion of the Missouri Breaks and adjacent prairies and part of the Musselshell Canyon caught fire in what was called the Lodgepole Complex of fires that complex burned some 26,000 acres and at the present time, there is a handle on it.
That is a fire that some are writing, could have been stopped early on but the BLM did not get into action early enough.
That used to happen in Glacier National Park as well when rangers would opt to let some fires burn if it appeared they were heading to the tops of peaks. It was thought that those fires were cleaning out lots of dead wood that needed cleaning out in the first place. It was only in later years when wildfires in Glacier got going very well and threatened hotels and lodges with shifts in wind currents. That was when the “let burn” policy was rethought and it appears that these days most all Glacier fires are put out.
The good news is that at this writing there are no fires in Glacier.
So, what can people do to help the current fire situation?
First, since most of Montana is in Stage 2 fire restrictions, if you are going picnicking or camping, adhere to those 2 rules.
They include prohibiting the following until further notice.
Do not build a campfire anywhere. Liquid petroleum and LPG stoves that can be turned on and off are allowed.
Smoking is prohibited outside of vehicles, buildings and developed recreation sites unless you are in a three foot diameter area cleared on burnable vegetation.
Operating motorized vehicles off designated roads and trails is prohibited.
Operating any internal combustion, welding, operating a torch with open flames and using explosives are prohibited from 1pm to 1am. A one hour foot patrol following cessation of work is required.
Be careful and stay inside and keep your elderly neighbors inside when it is too smoky to be outside. That is not a rule, it is called being a Good Samaritan.
I have seen plenty of big fires in my lifetime but none frightened me any more than a fire that I started by mistake in Greenough Gulch on Clear Creek in the 1960’s. That fire started because of my compulsiveness of keeping everything just so before leaving the cabin and heading to town. This one morning just before leaving, I dumped what I thought were burned out coals from the barbeque in the grass. It turned out that the coals were still red and before you know it I had burned down our barn and had a fire that went for forty or fifty acres before neighbors got it put out.
I think that the worst fire I ever saw in the this area happened around 1991 when a small fire started in the Little Box Elder drainage and spread through the prairie burning all the way to Cleveland. Several people lost their lives in that fire and at the time I was living at the Faber homestead on Little Box Elder Creek and the road past the Faber house had wall to wall cars on it all of one night. Those cars were driven by people who had been evacuated from their ranches and they were heading for shelter in Havre. That was almost a surreal experience and one that was very freighting.
Probably the worst fire I ever saw in Glacier National Park was the Robert Fire that was started by an out of control campfire north of Columbia Falls in 2003.
It was called the Robert Fire and it burned almost 39,000 acres in the McDonald Valley.
Fires are named by the person who spots the fire. The Robert fire was named by a lookout observer around Numa Ridge who first saw the fire and named it after his father whose first name was Robert.
Lake McDonald Lodge was evacuated twice during that fire and the only way the fire got put out is that firefighters made a desperate gamble and set a backfire on the side of Mount Stanton and when the main fire got to the back fire, it could more easily be put out.
One night we were evacuating people in the Red Busses at Lake McDonald Lodge and the wind was blowing so hard across the lake that embers from the other side of the lake were landing in the front parking lot at Lake McDonald Lodge. That was a very dangerous fire and it was fortunate that it did not burn the Lodge down.
I remember heading down the road for home one night and in a pull off standing, looking at the fire was then Glacier National Park Superintendent Mick Holm. He was new on the job but not new with fires as he was born and raised in Montana. I know that going through his mind as he saw the flames just behind Charlie Russell’s cabin, was whether he was going to have a park left or not after this terrible fire had done its damage.
The situation was almost worse when the fire was in the mop up stage. Lake McDonald Lodge opened again but the lobby filled with smoke every day. It was difficult to sell a room at all the rest of that year.
The old adage that only we can prevent wildfires is probably not true but it takes man to get those fires out when needed and to have the grit to rebuild whole lives that have been ruined by wildfires.
Don’t take chances period but especially don’t take chances during fire season.
