Fire season hinges on weather

Long-range forecasts are projecting a warmer-than-typical summer, but the 2006 wildfire season in the Northern Rockies will turn on the usual dominating factors: rain and lightning.

"If we get periodic rains through the summer, we're in good shape. But if we don't get that, we'll be into fire season," said Bob Sandman, Northwest Montana area manager for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

Allen Chrisman, fire management officer for the Flathead National Forest, has a similar view.

"That really is probably going to be the significant factor in this season, whether we get regular shots of moisture," Chrisman said.

Both men said there has been considerable grass and shrub growth during "green-up" and it depends on how rapidly that vegetation cures going into August, when the fire season typically gets under way in earnest in the Northern Rockies.

So far this month, there have been waves of thunderstorms passing over Northwest Montana, but they have triggered relatively few fires.

Flathead fire dispatch has recorded 25 fires this year - 18 caused by people and seven sparked by lightning. None have been larger than five or six acres, Chrisman said.

In the weeks ahead, however, lightning will present an increasing threat for forest-fire ignitions.

"If we're in a lightning pattern, we'll have ignitions and a lot of activity," Chrisman said.

"We can have the driest season on record and if we don't have any ignitions then we aren't going to have any fires, and lighting sure does play into that," Sandman said.

On a broader scale, a recently released national wildland fire outlook predicts increasing fire danger across the West due to a forecast for above-normal temperatures.

Above-average temperatures are expected to dry out forest fuels to a critical threshold in the Northern Rockies by the end of July, according to the long-range forecast from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Sandman said there will be an emphasis on rapid initial attack to suppress fires in Northwest Montana.

"We're gearing up for the proposition that we're not getting moisture," he said. "Most of our initial attack resources are pretty strong right now."

Chrisman said the Forest Service has more initial attack resources than it did last year. An air tanker base at Glacier Park International Airport will be ready for use as the fire danger increases.

Last week, a tanker loaded up with retardant at Glacier to help with a 49-acre fire south of Eureka. The tanker then shifted to help fight a fire on Mount Jumbo just outside Missoula.

Tankers, helicopters and other outside resources will be gradually shifted to Northwest Montana as the region's fire preparedness level increases, Chrisman said.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com