Official describes stopping East Fork Fire

After the second of three public meetings regarding the East Fork Fire was held Tuesday at the Chippewa Cree Stone Child Vo-Tech, the director of operations talked about how the type 1 incident management team came in, organized the boots already on the ground and contained the 21,518-acre fire.

Tuesday's meeting in Rocky Boy provided a lot of the same information provided to locals in Havre Monday in the Havre High School auditorium.

The fire as of this morning was listed as 85 percent contained. It went from the eighth-highest priority in the nation Monday to 18th by Tuesday afternoon.

Organization and communication is key when it comes to putting out fires, Great Basin Type 1 Incident Management Team Operations Branch Director Cody Peel said after the meeting.

They Type 1 teams are the top level of incident management teams, with 17 teams of that level in the nation.

The challenge, when they came in, Peel said, was finding and coordinating "who was doing what with what piece of equipment."

The first day here - Saturday - the federal firefighting crew shadowed the Type 3 Team made largely of volunteers and rural and state firefighting crews that had been battling the fire that started Aug. 27. The next day, the Type 1 Team took over, Peel said.

A large component of what they do, Peel said, is organizing the people already on the ground and creating better communication lines. The local firefighters, although competent and more than handy with their equipment, did not have a unified cohesive plan - they saw and they attacked, Peel said. Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday's meetings, members from the Type I Team repeatedly lauded the efforts and abilities of the ranchers and volunteers who had been battling the blaze since it began.

Of the Type I Team, 54 are are just in operations, people who work to get everyone on the ground on the same page and in constant communication with each other and those in operations. One of the first things the Type I Team did was hand out walkie talkies that everyone could communicate with, Peel said,

Although they were unable to come with their full "horsepower" because of demand for fire fighting crews, the Type I Team did bring in two hot shot crews, "our equivalent of special forces," Peel said.

Each team comprises 20 people who are highly skilled and self-sufficient in fighting fires, Peel said.

The Type I Team also brought in two initial crews made of 20 person each, who went in and fought the fire.

The turning point was when everyone started talking together, Peel said. The fire was chaos and no one who was battling it ever experienced a fire like it before.

Tuesday afternoon, Peel told people in the meeting the area of most concern was Little Box Elder Creek but the fire was well contained. It would take something like 50 mph winds to cause a real disturbance, Peel said.

The Type I Team will leave sometime near the end of this week, after which a Type 3 Team will take over. Peel said the Type 3 Team will be built by the Type 1 Team. It will comprise landowners, rural and local firefighters, and it will have an incident command, a finance chief, a public information officer, logistics, plans chief and a safety office.