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Hundreds evacuated as fires rage over thousands of acres By Gazette Staff and The Associated Press Hundreds of people remained out of their homes Thursday as wildfires charred thousands of acres in southwestern Montana.
The National Interagency Fire Center tallied 13 large fires on 171,000 acres across Montana. Firefighters, spread thin as they responded to dozens of new blazes, got no help from the weather as temperatures in the 90s persisted, with low humidity, sporadic winds and thunderstorms that brought dry lightning and many new fires. In Eastern Montana, local crews are expected to take over mop-up duties today at the 60,600 acre Fort Howes Complex of fires, 25 miles south of Ashland, and the 9,100 acre Tobin fire, 26 miles northwest of Broadus. Neither destroyed any buildings, the Billings Interagency Dispatch Center reported. The final cost of fighting these two fires is estimated to hit $3.25 million, said Brad Brown of the BIDC. On Thursday, the number of firefighters at the blazes had dropped to 165 at Fort Howes Complex and 119 at Tobin. “Some of them are going to be transferred to other fires, especially in Western Montana, and some are going to be sent home to rest if they’ve been out too long,” Brown said. Crews brought the Daily fire under 100 percent control Thursday. The 500-acre blaze, which broke out Saturday and has not destroyed any buildings, is five and a half miles northwest of Ashland, and local crews are expected to take over operations today. A new blaze in the Missouri Breaks, named the Hell Creek fire, was triggered by lightning at 2 p.m. Wednesday about 20 miles northwest of Jordan. The fire grew to 750 acres but was 70 percent contained by Thursday night, Brown said. One old homestead and two outbuildings were consumed by the flames, and Brown said fossils and wildlife habitat were threatened by the fire. The Hell Creek fire is in rugged country with no access for fire engines, he said. The brunt of the damage was in Western Montana. The Blodgett Trailhead fire, about five miles northwest of Hamilton, grew to 1,700 acres after forcing about 280 families to leave their homes in the scenic Bitterroot Valley. But the fire was burning away from Hamilton and firefighters were optimistic about protecting homes. In the Bitterroot National Forest, dozens more fires burned south of Hamilton, including 26 in the Darby area. Firefighters attacked 12 of them Wednesday and were able to extinguish nine, said Joan Dickerson of the U.S. Forest Service staff in Hamilton. No homes or other buildings have been lost in those fires, she said. Ravalli County officials declared a state of emergency and a health alert because of smoke from an estimated 90 fires in the Bitterroot Valley and smoke from fires in Idaho. U.S. Highway 93, the main north-south route through the Bitterroot Valley, was closed Wednesday at Lost Trail Pass on the Montana-Idaho border because of fire danger. The highway was reopened for a time Thursday, only to be closed again. Southwest of Missoula, U.S. 12 from Lolo Hot Springs to the Idaho border was closed because of fire danger. Both the Bitterroot and Helena national forests were closed to the public. Two new fires burned in the Elkhorn Mountains south of Helena. About three dozen homes were evacuated in the tinder-dry woods north of Basin and near Boulder along Interstate 15. The fast-growing Boulder Hill fire blew up to about 2,500 acres Thursday and destroyed a cabin and another building, thought to be a utility shed. The High Ore Road fire, in the mine-pocked countryside north of Basin, covered about 400 acres and was expanding, said Amy Teegarden of the Interagency Dispatch Center in Helena. There was a blowup around midday Thursday, Teegarden said. “We had about 80 people on the lines and they had to retreat to their safety zones,” she said. The 13-day-old Cave Gulch fire near Canyon Ferry Lake, east of Helena, was about 45 percent contained Thursday and had burned 25,670 acres. About 1,300 hundred people were assigned to fight the fire, including 272 Montana Army and Air National Guard troops who worked their first shifts on the fire lines Wednesday, after firefighter training. Several new fires burned on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, prompting a ban on recreational uses and threatening some structures. The Mussigbrod group of fires burned about 4,000 acres, and campers at Mussigbrod Lake were evacuated. Smoke from forest fires in southwestern Montana and Idaho has blanketed the Bitterroot and Missoula valleys, forcing health officials to issue air quality alerts. A Stage II warning was issued by the Missoula City-County Health Department because the air has become thick with wood smoke and carbon monoxide. The last time Missoula exceeded the Stage I pollution level was during the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980, which was considered a Stage IV crisis, said Ben Schmidt, air quality specialist with the Missoula health department. The smoky air began affecting people’s health in Missoula Thursday. Before noon, half-a-dozen people with respiratory distress had visited Community Medical Center’s emergency room. Over at St. Patrick Hospital, emergency personnel fielded a least a dozen smoke-related calls and tended to eight patients, a hospital supervisor said. A Stage I alert is the most common air quality problem, usually occurring in winter when polluted air is trapped during inversions. A Stage II alert means peoples’ health is significantly at risk and the health department urges people to take every precaution to stay out of the polluted air. A Stage III alert, which has never been called in Missoula, includes all of the previous recommendations and also requests that all nonessential public gatherings are canceled to reduce the amount of traffic. A Stage IV crisis institutes all the health recommendations and urges that everyone stay indoors and all businesses to close. Only essential services should remain open such as hospitals, police and fire services and grocery stores.
National Interagency Fire Center:
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