Wildfires (Bigger Than Us)

Problem is, our wildfires are not dying down. At present, over 40 fires are still listed as “active” here in Montana according to InceWeb.  Most of these fires have been prowling deadfall forests and rugged mountain terrain since mid-July.

Do the math.

This is September.

That’s too fucking long.

All this time—while Texas had been lashed silly by rain—we have experienced record drought and heat.  In Eastern Montana, the Lodgepole Complex has officially devoured 270,723 acres of farmland and rangeland.  Here in Western Montana, our fires, in some cases, have grown large enough to connect together.  After creeping around in thick timber and spewing smoke for a month or so, the Arrastra Creek Fire and the Park Creek Fires joined together and fully scoured a beautiful high mountain valley.

Sunday was bad.  Really bad.  Two of our fires got angry.  The Alice Creek fire (started by lightning on July 22^nd), crossed-over the Continental Divide less than a dozen miles from my cabin and on Sunday experienced a blowup.  Something near 6,000 acres were lost to fire that day alone.  Cabins and homes were evacuated.  Part of Highway 200 were shutdown.  At last report four cabins burned down.  That is the active fire nearest my house.  When we woke on Monday morning, that girl and I discovered ash and soot on floors, counters, and tables near the windows we’d left cracked open for the night.

But that’s not the ugliest fire.  One of our wildfires has the dubious distinction of now exploding into the fire of “number one priority” in the nation.  On Sunday, spurred by strong winds, growling, spitting fire, and leaping from treetop to treetop, the Rice Ridge fire scorched through more than 50,000 acres in one day.  The fire doubled in size.  The Rice Ridge fire has swept clean through the Swan Mountains and is now forcing evacuations some 30 miles from where it originated on July 24 following a thunderstorm.

There is a possibility that the Rice Ridge fire will ravage through another swath of mountains and forest and eventually reach the Arrastra Creek and the Park Creek fire lines.   

Our present 10-day forecast?   No real rain.  More extreme heat.

Yesterday, while at the cabin, I watched a Boeing 747 Supertanker (slurry bomber) loop directly over our small mountain valley on four occasions as it thundered low across the mountains to make slurry runs along the ever-moving front of the Alice Creek fire.  The lumbering jet was not far beyond reach of a bow and arrow shot.

We are awaiting what firefighters and weathermen call “a season-ending event.”

This is way bigger than us.   

--Mitchell Hegman