Forest Service letting fires burn in wilderness
By JIM MANN
The Daily Inter Lake
The U.S. Forest Service is now managing as many as 11 fires for "resource benefits" in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.
The largest fire is 75 acres.
So far, most of the fires have been fairly inactive due to recent rains, available fuels and topographic conditions, said Allen Chrisman, the Flathead National Forest's fire management officer.
"I'd say about a third of these fires are very close to being out," he said. "They aren't putting up much smoke."
The largest is the Jenny Creek fire, which has consumed about 75 acres at the south end of the wilderness just west of Monture Creek. The fire is positioned to eventually run into an area that was burned in 2001, Chrisman said. A smoke column from the fire is likely to be visible from communities along the southern wilderness boundary.
The 15-acre Tango Point fire, just inside the wilderness about seven miles east of Condon, is likely to be visible from the Swan Valley, Chrisman said.
About 15 firefighters are working to stop a 2 1/2-acre fire in the Danaher Creek area at the southern end of the Bob, because of the potential for it to grow outside the wilderness boundary.
"We don't want it to get any bigger," Chrisman said.
The Forest Service has stepped up its use of fire in the wilderness during the last two decades, and the last few years in particular, as a means of managing forests where logging and other types of management are prohibited.
But this year, wilderness managers had to get approval at the regional and national levels of the Forest Service to proceed with fires for resource benefits in the wilderness. That's the because the agency's Northern Region is ranked at the highest preparedness level for fires.
Outside the wilderness, firefighters have continued to put out lighting-caused fires over the last few days, most of them stopped at a fraction of an acre.
As of Tuesday, firefighters were working on the 2-acre Cyclone fire near Moose Lake in the North Fork Flathead River drainage.
And work on two small fires in the Swan Valley was expected to be wrapped up by the end of the day, Chrisman said.
The haze that settled over the Flathead Valley on Tuesday was smoke drifting from distant fires. Chrisman speculated that it could be from Washington state, a 300-acre fire north of Lincoln or the Gash fire, a 5,000-acre fire in the Bitterroot Valley that was highly active Monday.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com