By SHERRY DEVLIN of the Missoulian
Incident commanders at wildfires in the northern Rockies were
told Thursday to steer fires away from communities and into remote
areas, where many will simply have to burn until season-ending
rains put them out.
There is simply too much fire and too few resources to expect that every wildfire will be contained or controlled by anything other than nature, said Greg Greenhoe, the area commander overseeing four wildfires burning west of U.S. Highway 93 in the Lolo National Forest.
"Some smaller fires we will go ahead and contain," Greenhoe explained. "We have several fires where we project we will get full containment."
The Dirty Ike fire - which has burned 1,200 acres between Clinton and Potomac - likely will be contained by firefighters, he said. So will the Twin Lakes fire, which has burned 150 acres south of Georgetown Lake.
"But right now, for many of our incidents, we are working to control the sides of fires that threaten communities," Greenhoe said. "Some of these fires are just too big and too remote to be able to have 100 percent containment by humans."
The Mineral/Primm fire is one such too-big, too-remote fire, he said. Firefighters will try to guide the fire's growth into remote, inaccessible places, but probably will not be able to stop it on their own. Already, that fire has burned nearly 9,000 acres in the Rattlesnake Wilderness and upper Gold Creek northeast of Missoula.
Greenhoe's assignment as area commander is testimony to the number of fires burning in western Montana and the northern Rocky Mountains - and the pressure those fires place on firefighting resources.
"An area command is established when you have multiple fires in a relatively small area, and you've got competition for resources and concerns with coordination of aircraft and with moving and sharing of resources between incidents," he said. "So an area command is established to provide that coordination and sharing of resources."
Greenhoe's team was originally assigned all of the major wildfires burning in the Lolo forest and surrounding state and private lands, but when that number hit 10, he asked for help. On Friday, another area command will take over the five major fires burning east of Highway 93.
Ten fires are beyond any one person's - or one command team's - ability to supervise to the best of their ability, he said. "Once you get to six or seven or more, you are really not able to pay attention to all the details of an incident."
Coordination and sharing are essential with so many fires burning, not only in the Lolo forest but throughout the West. In sheer numbers of fires, 2003 is getting close to the 2000 fire season, Greenhoe said. So far, though, the 2003 fires are smaller in size.
But they're no less troublesome, and the season is far from over, he warned. The smoke and flames and fluctuating conditions will continue into September.
In Seeley Lake, District Ranger Tim Love echoed Greenhoe's concerns. "There is still a lot of season ahead," he said. "These fires are going to skunk around some days, then get hit with wind and make significant runs on other days. That's just going to happen."
"There are going to be some tough days ahead," Love said. "There is going to be lots of smoke."
Wildland firefighting is "a punctuated sort of thing - with huge advances some days and nearly nothing on others," he said. "You've got to hope for a string of quiet days where you can get some work done."
On many of the larger fires, total perimeter control is not likely, Love said. "This fire season won't come to an end until we get the kind of weather that puts out a fire."
The going gets tougher as the season goes on, he said. "The anxiety level and tiredness picks up for everyone. It gets old."
But both Greenhoe and Love emphasized that fire commanders are doing their best and are committed to keeping people, firefighters and communities safe. Every incident is prioritized based on its threat to humans - be they firefighters or nearby residents.
"All the large fires will be managed first to contain those parts of the fires that can threaten human life and property," Greenhoe said. "If an incident commander does not have the resources to completely contain an incident, they'll secure the fire where it is closest to communities and steer the rest of it away from the community into a more remote area. That may be where it stays until we have a season-ending weather event."
"Nothing is black and white, though," he said. "There
are no guarantees."
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268
or at sdevlin@missoulian.com.