Weather helps firefighters to make progress on large blazes

The Daily Inter Lake

Cloud cover, higher humidities and lower temperatures held large fires at bay Wednesday in Northwest Montana, allowing firefighters to make progress.

Squirrelly winds caused moderate burning activity on the Brush Creek Fire, but the fire stayed within containment lines, and firefighters were able to expand and shore up lines intended to protect homes in the Good Creek drainage.

The fire was sized at 22,725 acres Wednesday afternoon, and is considered 10 percent contained with more than 400 people assigned to it.

In addition to the indirect firelines, air tankers dropped retardant ahead of the leading northeastern fire front and burnout operations have been planned to curb fire growth toward Good Creek. A 24-hour evacuation warning remains in effect for Good Creek. If the fire should reach a four-hour trigger point, an evacuation order will be issued.

Another public information meeting has been scheduled for today at 7 p.m. at the incident command post, just over three miles south of U.S. 93 on Farm to Market Road.

The Chippy Creek Fire, burning north of Hot Springs, remains the state's largest fire at 53,990 acres.

"It's been laying down," said fire information officer Wayne Johnston, describing Wednesday's fire activity. "There have been higher humidities and calmer winds."

Those conditions turned out to be favorable for burnout operations aimed at preventing the fire from spreading to the southeast and southwest.

Those operations produced a good share of smoke coming off the fire, which is considered 10 percent contained with 435 people assigned to it.

The Skyland Fire, burning just south of Marias Pass on the Continental Divide, also was relatively calm Wednesday.

"We have pretty good bookends on it," said Tom Knappenberger, fire information officer. "We're going to continue to do work on the north and south flanks of the fire."

The fire is more than 19 miles long, covering just more than 38,000 acres, mostly on the Flathead and Lewis and Clark national forests and the Blackfeet Reservation. The fire's most recent growth has been mostly to the south on national lands with no structures in its path, other than a Forest Service cabin that has been wrapped with fire-resistant materials.

Firefighting strategy has focused largely on keeping the blaze from spreading north of U.S. 2 into Glacier National Park, and preventing any spread toward the town of East Glacier.

Nearly 1,000 people are assigned to the fire, including a new incident-command team that assumed management of the fire Wednesday night.