Air crews extracted fire personnel from the American Fork fire in the Crazy Mountains when the fire doubled in size Sunday, as more uncontrolled growth is expected on several fires due to hot and dry weather blanketing Montana.
Just an hour's drive north, the Harris Mountain fire doubled in size overnight to at least 12,000 acres, prompting a massive overhaul in crew and evacuations southeast of Cascade.
While hundreds of fires have already sparked across the state this year, fire officials warn there are many more to come as drought conditions continue to worsen. With several weeks left in the season, wildfires are also beginning to carve larger, and more destructive paths.
“Fuel is sparking easier and burning faster,” Brook Smith, an information officer from the Southern Area Gold Fire Team, told The Gazette Monday. “Right now the weather is matching with the terrain to create ideal conditions for fires to grow fast.”
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Smoke from fires burning across the West triggered an air quality alert for Beaverhead, Carbon, Gallatin, Lewis and Clark, Madison, Missoula, Park, Pondera, Powder River, Powell, Ravalli, Silver Bow and Sweet Grass counties Monday, where air quality reached “unhealthy for sensitive groups” or “unhealthy" levels.
Air quality across the state ranges from "moderate" to "unhealthy" with the worst air quality concentrations occurring south of the I-90 corridor. In Billings, air quality degraded as smoke blew in to just under the threshold for unhealthy. Much of the smoke is coming from Montana fires.
The American Fork fire has burned more than 12,000 acres, and many crews operated cautiously as a red flag warning, signaling dry and windy weather, was in effect Monday. A press release from incident command said the fire was 10% contained but burning west untouched into the Shields Creek watershed.
A crew on the American Fork fire was checking a dozer line when conditions worsened. The group was airlifted out due to an abundance of caution, a press release said.
The Ellis and Balsinger fires, combined to create the Divide Complex, are also burning at 1,200 and 5,400 acres, respectively, in forest land around White Sulphur Springs. One Type Two team has been assigned to fight the fires; and Smith said resources are hard to come by.
“Nationally, everything from aircraft to the people taking the public’s phone calls are stretched thin,” Smith said. “There are a lot of fires happening, and only a limited number of people available to fight them.”
Officials reassigned two task forces from Utah and one from California to fight fires in Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte tweeted Friday. Across towns small and large, out-of-state fire trucks are becoming a common sight.
The National Interagency Fire Center prioritized the Northern Rockies, which covers Montana, northern Idaho, northern Wyoming and North Dakota, as the most critical fire region on Monday morning, according to information officer Tina Boehle.
Boehle said the nation is in its highest stage of fire preparedness.
"We make it to high resources every year, this year we moved up earlier than usual," she said.
The national fire agency sends bulk resources to each district. From there, regional agencies allocate resources by fire based on the amount of need.
So when the Harris Mountain fire made a strong run Sunday night toward homes, a Type Two incident management team arrived and took command by 6 a.m. the next morning.
Officials said the fire slowed its movement north towards the scattered houses, and that successful structure protection saved all homes from the blaze. Evacuations and road closures near the fire are in place. I-15, which runs west of the fire, is still open.
On Monday officials issued a pre-evacuation order for several ranches near White Sulphur Springs after the Woods Creek Fire in the remote mountains of Helena National Forest went from 276 acres to more than 2,706 acres overnight.
The fire was moving west of the Boulder basin, but switched directions and made a powerful run east, scorching 3 miles in 2 hours. A Type Three response team arrived at the Woods Creek fire Monday, with a Type Two incident command requested.
Near Fort Peck Lake on the Charles M. Russell Wildlife refuge, an 11,000 acre burn closed Devil’s Creek road just outside of a state recreation area, roughly 36 miles north of Jordan. State and federal resources are responding to the fire, though further questions from The Gazette on personnel were not answered by press time.
Southwest of Colstrip, the 9,100-acre Slough Grass fire reached full containment, even as the fire popped up in another location after traveling through a seam of coal. The new fire, called the Rough Draw fire, was quickly contained and pushed towards the original burn area, where it died out from a lack of new fuels on July 25.
The hot and dry weather is likely to continue Tuesday with record-breaking highs across Eastern Montana. A cold front with rain, however, will pass through the area during the second half of the week.
“There will be a greater chance of rain at higher mountain elevations, but in the plains it will be scattered,” Krista Carrothers of the National Weather Service said.