Dec 09 2012
Work on the “National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy” is in its final stages, with the public comment period starting December 15. This will likely have a significant impact on wildfire management and generate quite a bit of controversy. The Missolian has an excellent report, with links to supporting documents. . . . Wildfires and [...]
Oct 15 2012
Expect more big wildfires for a while . . . The trend toward larger, hotter wildfires in this part of the country is rapidly becoming the new normal. In the four decades between 1960 and 1999, wildfires in the United States scorched more than 7 million acres in a single year just once. Since 2000? [...]
Sep 03 2012
Glacier Park is dealing with a wildfire in the vicinity of Avalanche Lake . . . Firefighters spent Sunday working to suppress the 25-acre Avalanche Wildland Fire burning on Mount Brown in Glacier National Park. Reported to authorities Saturday afternoon, the wildfire is located near Avalanche Lake and the popular Avalanche Lake Trail will remain [...]
Aug 21 2012
A Flathead-based fire fighting crew pulled themselves off the Steep Corner fire in Idaho due to safety issues the day before Anne Veseth was killed while working that fire . . . One day before a 20-year-old firefighter was killed by a falling tree on the Steep Corner fire, a U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew [...]
Aug 19 2012
This story centers on Gila National Forest, but discusses a general, if temporary, policy this year: Whenever practical, the U.S. Forest Service is jumping on all fires as soon as they brew up. Why? Because it’s cheaper . . . If lightning strikes in the New Mexico wilderness and starts a fire, the blaze would [...]
Aug 10 2012
Lots of lightning Wednesday night, but not much action in western Montana . . . Wednesday night’s lightning storm didn’t do as much damage as it appeared in western Montana, but eastern Idaho wilderness areas got pounded. “The Clearwater (Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest) picked up 41 new starts,” said Bitterroot National Forest spokesman Tod McKay. [...]
Aug 03 2012
Wildfire activity in northwest Montana has eased up over the past couple of days . . . While activity on several fires in and around the Bob Marshall Wilderness has slowed over the last couple of days, one fire has showed signs of life. After being detected Tuesday, the Bar Creek Fire grew to 70 [...]
Jul 30 2012
The U.S. Forest Service is starting to get busy. They’ve now got a 3,000 acre blaze in the Bob, after a couple of fires merged, as well as several smaller actions elsewhere. According to the following article from the Daily Inter Lake, they did manage to suppress a small wildfire in the North Fork’s Coal [...]
Jul 29 2012
Well, the U.S. Forest Service had an incident team set up on Moran Meadow today, a short distance south of Polebridge. Reportedly, they were working with helicopter support (a shiny red one) to knock down a spot fire in the Coal Creek area. They appeared to be doing water drops. So, it looks like its [...]
Jul 24 2012
This explains the increased low-flying air traffic yesterday . . . A late-night storm on Sunday generated more than 100 lightning strikes in the Flathead National Forest and sparked seven small fires. On Monday, crews were working to suppress the fires and flying over the Spotted Bear Ranger District to get a better idea of [...]
