East Fork Fire 100 percent contained

Staff and wire report

The incident commander of the East Fork Fire in the Bear Paw Mountains said the cool weather and rain has helped with the fire, which was declared 100 percent contained Saturday.

“Things went very well over the weekend,” incident commander Don Pyrah of the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation said this morning. “ … I’m feeling really good where were at, to be really honest with you.”

The fire started by the East Fork Reservoir on Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation Sunday, Aug. 27, and by the end burned 21,896 acres.

Pyrah said he is demobilizing the resources used in the fire, although crews will continue to check today and Tuesday. Part of the future actions will depend on conditions in the mountains, he said — right now, conditions are so muddy checking on the fire in some areas would do more damage than help.

He said he was holding a meeting this morning with county officials to update them and turn over command of the firefighting to the counties.

He said that while the rain and cooler weather has helped contain the fire, spots will continue to burn for weeks or months, where heavy growth — even roots in patches several feet deep — burned and will continue to smolder.

People will continue to see smoke from those areas for quite some time, Pyrah said.

“It’s just going to be a fact of life,” he said.

He said the area received close to an inch of rain, with the amount variable depending on the location. One landowner told him he received two inches, Pyrah said.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Cody Moldan said the stations Weather Service monitors in the Bear Paws reported 1 inch exactly and .91 inches from Wednesday through Saturday.

One person reported receiving 1.75 inches about seven miles south of Havre, he added.

Moldan said the forecast is for continued cooler temperatures — today’s high forecast at 70 for Havre will probably be the warmest all week, with highs in the Bear Paws predicted in the 60s Tuesday and the 40s and 50s the rest of the week, with a chance of light but widespread rain today and “a pretty good chance of rain Thursday.”

In other parts of the state, rain, snow and cold have replaced heat and smoke after about two dry months on Montana’s fire lines, leaving crews scrambling for extra sleeping bags, heaters, coats and long underwear.

While the change in weather is welcome, it brings its own challenges for crews fighting dozens of fires in drought-stricken Montana.

“The main goal today was to go out and start pulling hose and pumps and things we absolutely didn’t need on the line because it’s going to be below freezing tonight,” said Mike Cole, a spokesman on a fire near Seeley Lake that has burned 243 square miles. The blaze led to evacuation orders, a delay to the start of the school year and choked the valley with hazardous air quality for weeks on end.

Another shot of cooler weather forecast to move in today could further help button things up, Cole said Friday, but fire season isn’t over.

“When it warms up here, and it usually does a couple weeks in October, people will probably still see smoke pop up in there,” Cole said.

For now, crews are taking advantage of cooler temperatures and higher humidity to mop up the perimeter, which involves crews putting out every heat source within 100 feet of the fire line. Then they’ll begin rehabilitation work.

In Glacier National Park, an evacuation warning issued for the Apgar and West Glacier areas Wednesday was followed Friday with the closure of a section of Going-to-the-Sun Road because of heavy snowfall.

Firefighters were laying up with extra clothes and had access to extra sleeping bags as overnight temperatures dropped, said fire spokeswoman Anna Callahan.

Snow did not fall on the 25 square mile fire that destroyed Sperry Chalet on Aug. 31 and has threatened Lake McDonald Lodge, but another storm forecast for today should help, she said.

Across the Continental Divide, at a fire near Lincoln, snow began falling at around 3 a.m. Friday and about 2 inches of precipitation was forecast to fall on the fire, said Connie Wetzel, fire spokeswoman.

“We’ve had pretty much a 180 in fire behavior,” Wetzel said.

With the change came an about-face in firefighter gear and sleeping conditions.

There’s a supply unit with extra sleeping bags, support staff brought in heaters and they had to make a gravel road to the fire camp, because the heavy equipment was sinking into the mud, she said.

Firefighters on the large fire near Seeley Lake gathered around a propane heater in camp and donned heavy coats Friday morning. A skiff of snow fell on some already-burned areas. One part of the fire got a quarter inch of rain.

“Everybody’s wearing long underwear up here today,” Cole said. A few days before the weather was forecast to change, some firefighters who weren’t prepared for the incoming cold had to go online and order coats.

“Those of us that have done this for a long time, we bring coats and long underwear with us,” Cole said.