From the Daily Inter Lake . . .
Fire activity was relatively quiet Saturday, with fires in Northwest Montana gaining little ground.
The South Fork Lost Creek Fire, which is burning southeast of Swan Lake, grew just 60 acres from when it was sized Friday afternoon. That is due in part to a burnout operation firefighters conducted Friday, which was used to create a break in front of an active part of the fire.
Timothy Egan posted an interesting “Opinionator” piece to the New York Times today titled “Nature Without the Nanny State.” It discusses the rising incidence of city-bred visitors ignoring common sense precautions when visiting national parks, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Here’s the meat of the piece . . .
More than ever, an urban nation plagued by obesity, sloth and a surfeit of digital entertainment should encourage people to experience the wild — but does that mean nature has to be tame and lawyer-vetted?
My experience, purely anecdotal, is that the more rangers try to bring the nanny state to public lands, the more careless, and dependent, people become. There will always be steep cliffs, deep water, and ornery and unpredictable animals in that messy part of the national habitat not crossed by climate-controlled malls and processed-food emporiums. If people expect a grizzly bear to be benign, or think a glacier is just another variant of a theme park slide, it’s not the fault of the government when something goes fatally wrong.
As in past years, the Daily Inter Lake is leaning into its wildfire coverage. Here’s the latest write-up . . .
Two large wildfires in the Bob Marshall Wilderness settled down somewhat Friday, while a burnout operation was initiated on a fire just outside the wilderness seven miles southeast of Swan Lake.
Another report — with photos — from the Daily Inter Lake on the area’s fires . . .
Wildfires in the Bob Marshall Wilderness have spread rapidly over the last couple of days, and an aerial burnout operation is planned today on a fire burning just outside the wilderness southeast of Swan Lake.
In just one day after it was detected, the Big Salmon Lake Fire went on a wind- and fuel-driven rampage Wednesday, growing to 2,000 acres. The fire started near the north shore of Big Salmon Lake, burning upslope to the northeast in heavy timber.
It has a high potential for growth toward the South Fork Flathead River, prompting multiple trail closures and efforts to protect the Salmon Forks Cabin, the Salmon Forks suspension bridge and the Little Salmon Bridge.
Today’s Daily Inter Lake has a pretty good report on the wildfire action in the Flathead Valley . . .
Flathead Valley residents got to take in a familiar summer spectacle Wednesday: Smoke columns towering over the Swan Mountain Range.
The smoke was pouring from two fires burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
It was the first time big smoke columns have been visible from the valley floor since summer 2007…
From this week’s Hungry Horse News . . .
After a long, cold winter and equally cold spring, all but four of Glacier National Park’s backcountry campgrounds are now open.
As of presstime, Brown Pass, Hole-in-the-Wall, Sperry Chalet and Beaver Woman Lake were the only campgrounds that remained closed.
The four are closed “due to sensitive environmental conditions,” which usually means they’re too wet, have snow or may have seen other winter damage. Hole-in-the-Wall in particular usually opens late due to snow.
While many backcountry campgrounds are open, finding a spot may prove challenging…
Larry Wilson discusses the recent organizational elections . . .
At first it seemed that summer would never arrive. It certainly took its own sweet time. June was cold and rainy, and it was cool and wet in July – we celebrated the anniversary of the Wedge Canyon Fire of 2003 on July 18 with a rainstorm.
All of a sudden it’s mid-August and already there are signs of fall. The huckleberry crop is waning, and the serviceberries are ripening. Just a note to Joe Novak – ripe serviceberries may be purple, but they are otherwise nothing like huckleberries.
All of the local organizations have held their annual elections…
From the Daily Inter Lake . . .
Environmentalists have asked a federal appeals court for an emergency injunction to halt wolf hunts scheduled to start in a few weeks in Idaho and Montana.
The request filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other groups with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was made public Saturday. The groups want the hunts canceled until the court issues a decision in an appeal filed Monday challenging a federal judge’s ruling allowing the hunts to go forward.
For those of you who have been following the “greenbelt” zoning kerfuffle, the Hungry Horse News posted a brief report . . .
A new zoning district proposed for county land along highways was unanimously approved by the Flathead County Commissioners on July 27.
As proposed, development in the B-2HG general-business highway-greenbelt zoning district would require mitigation of visual impacts of commercial development, with special attention to setbacks, landscaping and signs.
In the Columbia Falls area, the zoning district could be applied to U.S. 2 and Montana Highways 40 and 206, but it will not affect properties regulated under the Canyon and North Fork neighborhood plans and will not apply to properties within the Columbia Falls two-mile planning and zoning jurisdiction.
**Sigh** From the Hungry Horse News . . .
Glacier National Park’s Inside North Fork Road probably won’t open in its entirety until at least the end of this month, Park spokesperson Denise Germann said last week.
The road has been closed from Fish Creek to Logging Creek because of a slump and washout damage, Germann said. Crews are still waiting for water levels in some streams to drop so the damage can be repaired, she said.