BY MARK MATTHEWS

A “good” fire season means different things to different folks. For residents of mountain valleys in the Northern Rockies, it may mean a summer of relatively smoke-free skies. For American Indian firefighters, contract fire crews and agency groundpounders, it may mean lots of fires and, therefore, overtime pay. For Bob Gilman, fire operations specialist with the Northern Rockies, it meant something in between this summer. “Every-one kept busy, but no one got overworked,” he says.

Photo AP/Michael Gallacher, Missoulian Members of the Salmon River (Calif.) Hotshot crew wait for orders on the edge of the Tarkio Fire near Alberton, Mont.

Gilman described the 2005 fire season in the region (Montana, North Dakota, northern Idaho and part of northwestern South Dakota) as pretty average. “It was more like it used to be,” he explains, before the out-of-control years like 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2002. “We got a little more moisture than anticipated in the spring, and things didn’t start up until July, and then ran through the middle of September. All seven of our incident management teams were engaged.”

As usually happens, the wet spring brought a burst of heavy ground cover, which helped August fires spread rapidly on hot, windy days.

By the end of September, the Northern Rockies Coordination Center had tallied up the figures for the most aggressively attacked fires. Some 1,895 fires scorched approximately 131,471 acres across Montana, Idaho and North Dakota. Human activity caused about 61 percent of the fires, with lightning igniting 744 of them.

Montana led the way with 1,294 fires on 105,802 acres; Northern Idaho had 390 fires on 16,767 acres; and North Dakota had 201 fires on 8,902 acres. But that’s only half the story. “We also accomplished a lot of wildland fire use in the backcountry,” Gilman says.
Wildland fire use (WFU) incidents usually occur in unpopulated and undeveloped areas such as Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. Officials carefully monitor the blazes, but order direct attacks only when the flames threaten to spread to developed areas or toward important natural resources such as municipal watersheds.

Idaho reported a dozen WFU complexes this summer. These blazes scorched 21,511 acres, bringing that state’s total to 38,278 acres. Montana recorded six WFU events, covering 44,540 acres, for a total of 150,342 acres burned. Including WFU incidents, the final tally in the entire Northern Rockies area was 197,522 acres burned.
WFU on the Selway-Salmon Complex

The Selway-Salmon Complex proved to be a good example of a WFU event. On Aug. 10, an early-morning lightning storm ignited more than 30 fires about 26 miles south/southwest of Hamilton, Mont., in the wilderness areas of the Bitterroot and Salmon-Challis national forests.

This area is part of the 4-million-acre Maximum Manageable Area (MMA) designated for WFU events within the Rocky Mountains. In all, 807,885 acres in the Selway-Salmon area are dedicated to WFU.

The size of the fires in this area ranged from one-tenth of an acre to 70 acres. On the first day, officials estimated that the fires covered 297 acres and only posed threats to the Deep Creek campground and to road access along the Magruder Road corridor. Other resources in the area included Hells Half Acre Lookout, Coopers Flat Ranger Station and many recreational trails. At this point, 17 personnel were assigned to the Complex.

Two days after ignition, the fires continued to smolder and creep through lodgepole pine and spruce-fir forests, where the understory fluctuated from sparse to brushy, depending on elevation.

The Aug. 12 fire report indicated that the fires covered about 2,170 acres. Lookouts noted torching in individual trees and clusters. The individual fires included Wapiti, 287 acres; Capitan, 466 acres; Beaverjack, 576 acres; Elk Lake, 150 acres; Reynolds Lake, 523 acres; and Cedar Barefoot, 51 acres. An additional 33 fires each burned less than 25 acres. At this time, 23 personnel and one Type 3 helicopter monitored the fires.

On Aug. 19, when one of the fires approached historic buildings and campgrounds in the Paradise and Magruder Crossing areas, more personnel arrived to implement structural protection plans, bringing the total number of firefighters and overhead to 54. Monitors noted group tree torching in more than 60 percent of the fire acreage, and the number of acres burned grew to 15,320.

On Sept. 2, high winds and low relative humidity sustained crown runs. Personnel, now numbering 66, patrolled roads, cleared debris and warned travelers entering the area of the predicted fire activity. Other personnel monitored the fires or stood guard near threatened structures.

By Sept. 3, the Complex had burned 24,759 acres, with some fires threatening Hells Half Acre Lookout, Coopers Flat Guard Station, the Magruder Work Center, Spot Mountain Lookout and Horse Heaven cabins. Officials closed access to five trails that webbed through the area.

By the second week in September, cooler temperatures and higher humidity helped moderate fire behavior. The final fire report tagged the acres scorched at 35,720. Of that, the fire burned 3,122 acres in the Salmon-Challis National Forest and 32,598 acres in the Bitterroot National Forest. Fire operations cost $953,545.

Long Ruggles Complex
The high cost of fire suppression becomes apparent when comparing a direct attack with WFU activity. The Long Ruggles Complex burned only 13 percent of the acreage that was scorched on the WFU Selway-Salmon Complex, but cost three times as much.

On Aug. 8, lightning ignited the Complex in steep, rocky country about 22 miles southwest of Craigmont, Idaho. Two fires that day, totaling 86 acres, displayed erratic behavior, then merged and spread to 800 acres. The fire threatened winter livestock forage and a steelhead trout spawning and rearing habitat on the Salmon River. About 100 firefighters and overhead arrived at the scene that day, including one Type 1 and two Type 2 helicopters.

The steep, inaccessible Salmon River country posed a number of problems that thwarted most plans for direct attack. Moreover, the few roads penetrating the area were in poor condition. When firefighters did reach the fire perimeter, they found it difficult to dig and hold line on the rocky slopes. They also encountered heavy light fuels on south-facing slopes, brush mixed with timber in involved draws and heavy over-mature timber in the draws.

By Aug. 12, the fire had scorched 2,390 acres. Firefighters, now numbering 152, completed several burnouts; however, as the fire settled down for the evening, the winds picked up to 30 mph, causing the fire to double in size by the next day.
Managers asked for more Type 1 crews to secure the lines. As the fire crossed Billy Creek, crews continued to dig line with the support of helicopter water drops. Two engines and one dozer pulled a night shift in order to hold part of the line.

On Aug. 15, the number of firefighters and overhead more than doubled, to 378. The forces now included three Type 1 crews with eight helicopters and four dozers providing support. When it rained the next day, the crews focused on interior burnouts of heavy fuels. Four days later, the fire was under control, and the incident command team handed over management to a Type 3 incident management team (IMT). The final fire report, filed on Sept. 12, notes that the fire scorched 4,731 acres and cost $2.9 million.

I-90 Corridor Complex
The most dramatic fires of the season took place in western Montana along the corridor of Interstate 90, about 30 miles west of Missoula, where 22 fires ignited on Aug. 4.

Twenty-seven fire engines from the Frenchtown Rural Fire Department, U.S. Forest Service (USFS), Montana State Department of Natural Resources and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes on the neighboring Flathead Indian Reservation rushed to the area. State troopers shut down the Interstate to all traffic as smoke obscured the highway corridor. Officials shut down some rail traffic near the Clark Fork River, and fishermen and rafters were prohibited from accessing the river as helicopters began filling their buckets at dip sites.

Photo courtesy Justin Dombrowski During Montana’s I-90 Complex, the Lolo Interagency Hotshot crew works to secure a fireline on a steep slope in rough terrain.

Quick action by the initial-attack crews snuffed most of the starts, but four fires (the Tarkio, West Mountain, East Alberton and Fish) swept through high grasses and other annual vegetation covering the valley floor. The fires then climbed onto steep south-facing slopes and spread across 300 acres of mostly ponderosa pine forest.

By day two, about 500 personnel had gathered under the unified command of Bob Sandman’s Northern Rockies IMT and the Frenchtown Rural Fire Department. Laura Wood, district fire management officer at the Ninemile Ranger District, noted that initial attack went well, considering the number of forces on the fire. “[That first day] saw the largest mutual-aid attack ever in the state of Montana,” she says.

Morning ground fire, which had intermittently torched individual trees and made short uphill runs, turned into sustained crown fires by the afternoon and jumped handlines dug the day before. As the West Mountain and Tarkio fires moved toward a Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) power line, the Fish and East Alberton fires smoldered and crept.

By 1400 hrs, officials reopened the rail line, as well as traffic on Interstate 90 in both directions. The next step was to order residents of West Mountain Creek to evacuate their homes. Officials organized informational meetings to address this issue. “It calms the community and reassures them,” says Garry Edson, Ninemile District Ranger, who spoke at many of the daily news briefings in Alberton.

By the end of day three, 844 firefighters had reported for duty, including 16 Type 1 teams and 15 Type 2 teams. The fires now covered 4,300 acres.

By Aug. 8, the threat to structures had decreased, allowing the IMT to expand direct and indirect attacks from firm anchor points, with continued bucket and air support along all uncontained divisions. The East Alberton (118 acres) and Fish (248 acres) fires were now contained, but the West Mountain (1,581 acres) and Tarkio (2,343 acres) fires continued to spread.

By Aug. 9, crews had secured containment lines in all but the northern flank of the two remaining fires. The spotty burning was difficult to contain. As such, managers developed plans for a potential burnout to secure the northeast head of the fire and to bring the fire down to roads, the Clark Fork River and other containment lines. Almost 900 firefighters, most encamped near the historic Ninemile Remount Depot about 10 miles to the east, battled the fires, which now covered 5,500 acres.

On Aug. 10, at 1900 hrs, the fire reached the BPA power line. Both lines grounded out within five minutes. Engineers had already rerouted the power to a support grid, and agreed not to recharge the line without consulting the IMT to ensure safety for firefighters and the public.

On the same day, as crews scouted the head of Nemote Creek, the fire made a run, forcing two dozer bosses and a dozer operator to deploy their shelters in a safety zone. The three escaped uninjured. By the end of the day, the fires had burned 10,546 acres.
Rain brought relief to the area on Aug. 12, and authorities allowed the residents of the West Mountain community to return to their homes the following day. Authorities also lifted the river closures, and helicopter crews set up a mobile dip site to avoid the fishermen and floaters on the river.

The fires smoldered for another week. By Aug. 21, the IMT disbanded the camp near Ninemile and declared the fire fully contained. The I-90 Complex ultimately burned 11,000 acres and cost $9.6 million.

Mark Matthews is a freelance writer living in Missoula, Mont. He is a former USFS seasonal groundpounder on the Lolo National Forest.