Team transfers command at East Fork Fire

With the high-intensity fire suppression scaling down on the East Fork Fire in the Bear Paw Mountains, the top-level incident management team turned the command over to a local management team this morning, although work on the fire is ongoing and the work on cleaning up the damage is just beginning.

The federal Type 1 Great Basin Incident Management Team #2 was scheduled to turn over management at 6 this morning to a local Type 3 management team it helped create this week.

The incident information page continued to list the fire as 90 percent contained at 21,518 acres.

The fire started about 3:30 p.m. Aug. 27 on the northeastern part of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, near the southern boundary of Beaver Creek Park and private ranchland to the east.

With gusty winds changing direction nearly every hour, firefighters seemed several times to be close to controlling the fire, then it would expand, often in a different direction.

The fire burned onto Beaver Creek Park and then into the Sucker Creek, Little Box Elder Creek and Clear Creek drainages.

The exact damage is unknown, but five cabins and five outbuildings in the park are confirmed as burned, no private residences have been reported as burned and no injuries or deaths have been reported. Ranchers have confirmed the deaths of livestock but the exact amount is not yet known.

Firefighters and residents are continuing to fight the fire, working on hot spots, securing fire lines and mopping up, and ranchers are working on repairs and burying dead livestock.

The community has mobilized to help, including the Montana State University-Northern Stockgrowers and the North Central Montana associations helping local ranchers, an account set up at Independence Bank in which people can donate to help with the fire expenses, and people creating other ways to raise funds including local businesses setting up accounts to accept donations and Alicia Burrington creating decals with the proceeds from their sales benefitting the fire efforts.

Watch for more on local efforts in upcoming editions of the Havre Daily News.

The Montana Department of Agriculture announced Thursday it is expanding its hay lottery, set up previously to help with ag producers facing fire and drought damages.

MDA is partnering with Miles Community College to house the donated hay and help with logistics and the Montana Stockgrowers Foundation to help coordinate cash donations to be used for transportation costs, the department said in a release. The lottery will be administered by MDA, with drawings taking place in early October.

Producers who have already applied for the lottery but were not chosen in the first drawing, will still be eligible for subsequent drawings.

"The outpouring of support for Montana's ag community has been nothing short of amazing. We saw a need to help coordinate donations, so we decided to expand the lottery," MDA Director Ben Thomas said in the release. "We are grateful to MCC and the Stockgrowers for partnering with us to get these resources to those affected by fires and drought."

People interested in making donations of hay, feed or transportation should call MDA's Fire & Drought Assistance Hotline at 1-844-515-1571. People who want to make a cash donation should call the Montana Stockgrowers Foundation at 406-442-3420.

Livestock producers interested in applying for the hay lottery must submit an application at http://agr.mt.gov/Hay-Lottery-2017. Eligible producers must be from a D2, D3 or D4 or fire-affected county and own at least 25 animal unit equivalents of state-specific livestock. The latest drought monitor depicting the drought levels of specific counties may be found at http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?MT.

The application deadline is Sept. 30.

The hay will be distributed in semi-load lots with the next drawing in early October. If additional donations are taken in after that date, more drawings will occur. Producers that are selected will be responsible for arranging transportation of the hay from Miles Community College in Miles City.

Questions about filling out the hay lottery application may be directed to MDA's Fire & Drought Assistance Hotline at 1-844-515-1571.

But the department is also warning people to be careful about donated hay - ranchers who receive it should keep an eye out for noxious weeds, the department said.

Noxious and invasive weed species have been detected in hay delivered from other locations in Montana and from other states, the department said in a release.

Dave Burch, the agency's weed program manager, urged ranchers to watch for new weed species, document them and follow up with weed control.

Burch said county weed coordinators, extension services and conservation districts can help ranchers identify invasive species and develop a management plan.

He also suggested storing the hay in one spot and feeding the hay close to that spot to limit any potential weed infestations to a smaller location.

Hay donations came from both inside and outside the state after a July fire that burned 421 square miles in central Montana.