Fire News - July 25, 2000
Although Mesa Verde is getting all the media attention, Helena, Montana is
having a pretty exciting fire season, too. On Sunday, two lightning-strike
fires near the Missouri River 20 miles from town blew up into separate
conflagrations which have now joined forces to form one pretty darn big
campfire. About 15,000 acres are burning so far and no end is in sight, with
hundreds of thousands of tinder-dry timber just waiting for the flames. The
area has been evacuated and we know a lot of people who have homes and
cabins in that neck of the woods, all nestled neatly into the trees. The
firefighters are not even able to fight the fire - all they are doing at
this point is trying to save structures that lie in the path of disaster.
Some homes have been lost and Helena’s only star observatory melted into a
heap of aluminum and cinders. Each afternoon a mushroom-cloud of smoke rises
like a huge thunderhead over the valley, and each evening the smoke settles
into the valley, smothering every nook and cranny. Sinuses are suffering;
there is no escape. With 90 degree temperatures, dessicating winds,
desert-like humidities, and no rain on the horizon, the situation is not
looking good. The woods are even drier now than they were in the disasterous
year of 1988 when two-thirds of Yellowstone went up in smoke. According to
historical weather patterns, we generally can expect the next big rainfall
to arrive around the third week of August…
Boy, do I ever wish I had an air conditioner.
Fires Update - July 29, 2000
The two huge fires burning east of Helena are still going strong, now having
expanded to 24,000 acres. Some 30 homes, cabins, and outbuildings have been
destroyed and hundreds of people evacuated. About 1,000 firefighters are on
the firelines. The only cooperation we’ve gotten from the weather is that
the winds have been calm, which is a real blessing. The fire investigators,
after checking the satelite maps of lightning strikes, discovered there had
been no lightning in the area at all. Yesterday they released the news that
one of the fires was caused by an unknown person driving across dry grass in
an ATV with a hot muffler; the other one was caused by a know person dumping
a barbeque full of “cold” brickettes into the gully behind his home. (It
only takes a single spark!) By law that person could be handed the full bill
of the cost of fighting the fire he started, which is averaging $1 million
per day.
When we moved to Montana in 1984, the North Hills burned in a spectacular
conflagration. In 1988, 50,000 acres of the Elkhorn Mountains on the south
side of the valley went up in smoke. Now the eastern hills are on fire, and
in a few years I expect we’ll be having some excitement in the mountains
that form the western wall of the valley.
Sick of Smoke - August 8, 2000
The main difference between the fires of 1988 and the fires of 2000 is that
in 1988, almost all of the big fires occurred in uninhabited areas. Not so
this year, and all across the state we’ve been playing “Evacuation
Roulette”. In 1988 I remember watching the 60,000 acre Canyon Creek fire in
the Bob Marshall Wilderness blow up to 180,000 acres in a single six-hour
conflagration pushed by a Canadian windstorm. I was amazed that the only
structures lost in the flames were some fences and some sheds. But this year
many people are learning the hard lesson about why you should build your
dream cabin in an open field instead of nestled in the flammable forest.
In the immediate vicinity of Helena, the 55,000 acres Canyon Ferry Fires out
by the Missouri River were considered “70 percent contained” last Saturday,
meaning that firelines had been burned or bulldozed around 70 percent of the
main fire area. On Friday they announced that the fire would be “fully
contained” by Sunday; alas, Monday brought wind into the area and the fire
jumped the lines and went back to being listed at " uncontained and
uncontrolled". Then last Wednesday two small fires about 15 miles south of
town got really really big very very fast, causing two small towns in the
area to be evacuated and filling the Helena valley with the densest smoke
yet. In the winter during inversions, an air particle level of 75 ppm is
considered very bad air quality and people are ordered to stop using their
wood stoves or face a fine. Last Friday, the air piratical level was 137
ppm. The sun was as orange as sunset in the middle of the afternoon. It made
your eyes water to be outside. Visibility was about a mile. It’s the first
time in my life I’ve ever looked in the paper and seen events cancelled “due
to smoke.”
These same two new fires caused the interstate to be closed yesterday
afternoon because the visibility was down to zero. The highway that runs
from Missoula south to Idaho, passing my old lookout, has been closed for
the past week or so because there are so many fires burning so unpredictably
throughout the length of that valley that they can’t guarantee anyone’s
safety. There’s a 12,000 acre fire burning right near my old lookout, right
behind the ranger station where I was headquartered in an area that is
heavily peppered with vacation cabins. The entire Helena National Forest has
been closed to the public, as have many of the other national forests in the
state, because all it takes to invite another new disaster is a single
cigarette carelessly discarded, or a car with a hot muffler pulling off the
road onto dry grass, or someone deciding that the kids really need to be
able to roast marshmallows. The supervisor of the Lolo National Forest
announced yesterday that his firefighting forces are so maxed out that if
any new fires should start, he will not ask the firefighters to fight the
fire; he will not ask the firefighters to save the homes that lie in the
path of the fire; but instead he will only ask the firefighters to evacuate
people in front of the fire, and no more.
In the summer of 1910, there were dozens of small fires burning here and
there across Montana and Idaho. They ranged in size from a few acres to
several thousand acres but seemed to pose no particular threat to the
sparsely populated area. Then came a major windstorm and all of the small
fires joined to form one incredible firestorm which burned 3 million acres
in 48 hours, wiping out several towns and killing some 80 people. Right now
we are in a similar situation, and if a major wind or a large lightning
storm come through before we’ve had a great deal of rain, then people all
across the world will be reading about us in the papers. The two brief rain
squalls that Helena received last week - the first rain in the area since
July 6 - were not worth the 10 new lightning fires that were started by the
storms.
As the heat, the smoke, and the tension continue unabated, the summer is
transformed into a season of sweat and worry.
If only it would rain.
Goodbye Sula Peak - August 9, 2000
I just received confirmation that the forest fire lookout tower I served on
for five of my ten years as a firespotter burned to the ground in the
devastating Bitterroot Fires. It’s been my hobby since 1987 to go around
looking at other fire towers, and of the 50 or more I’ve seen, there were
none more beautiful than Sula Peak – bird’s eye maple flooring; redwood
catwalk; cedar shake roofing; front row view of the Bitterroot Mountains.
Now, only ashes.
I’m crazy to know if they had time to remove any of the valuables before the
building burned - the panoramic photos taken in the 1950s; the antique
schoolroom maps I uses as windowblinds; the cloth from India that was my
privacy screen; the wooden plaque which said “Small House, Great Peace” in
Latin, which was a handmade gift from lookout expert Ray Kresek; the 1940s
forest service dishes; the collection of birds nests and rattlesnake tails
and mouse skulls that was my nature nook; the pheasant feathers that hung in
the window… What about the daisies I planted? And the yarrow? What about
the wallpaper I made for the outhouse that was made entirely of firefighting
cartoons? And what became of the silverware drawer that was signed by every
lookout that ever served on that tower?
Dear God…
I wonder if they will re-build.
I guess I need to sit here and spend some time feeling lucky that I got my
five seasons of heaven there. I’m a member of a very exclusive and
privileged club.
If only it would rain…
I’ve always wanted to move away from it all…