Fires, outages plague valley
Members of West Valley Fire Department, from left, Don Weakly, Eric Boulden, Russ Sappington and Kurt Carda, extinguish a pile of hay bales taken off a burning haystack following a lightning strike Tuesday evening west of Kalispell. “We’ll just meander out because that one was way too close for comfort,” said Nancy Nelson, referring to the lightning that hit close to her and her husband Duane’s home off Three Mile Drive. Jennifer DeMonte/Daily Inter Lake
By NICK LEDDEN
More than 400 lightning strikes reported Tuesday
The Daily Inter Lake
A line of thunderstorms stretching from southern Idaho to the Canadian border moved through the Kalispell area Tuesday evening, causing power outages and producing lightning that started fires throughout the Flathead Valley.
There were more than 400 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in Lincoln and Flathead counties between 6 and 9 p.m., according to National Weather Service forecaster Andrew Church.
Those strikes started about half a dozen small fires in Flathead County, according to the sheriff's office, but none were serious and all were quickly extinguished.
Possible fires were also reported near Browns Meadow and Jackson Meadow roads in Kila and in the Mission Mountains near Polson, but crews were unable to locate any of those, officials said.
The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation will search the areas with the largest number of lightning strikes for hot spots today. Some of the heaviest volume of strikes in Flathead County occurred in the Smith Valley and West Valley areas, authorities said.
A lightning strike on a Kalispell power substation knocked out electricity in parts of Evergreen, Creston, Many Lakes, and the Echo Lake area. Between 1,500 and 2,000 homes were affected, said Stephanie Wallace, a spokesperson for Flathead Electric Cooperative.
The lightning strike opened a transformer, which cut off power to distribution lines all the way to Echo Lake, Wallace said.
"We did have a pretty widespread outage for a short while," she said.
Crews were still working on the outages late Tuesday.
Scattered outages west of Kalispell and near Marion were also reported, but Wallace said she couldn't determine whether they were storm related.
The storm also caused a few minor accidents, including crashes on Helena Flats Road and Political Hill Road in Lakeside.
Although rain from Tuesday evening's line of storms was predicted to drop only a few hundredths of an inch of rain, winds were gusting up to 30 mph, Church said.
"Fuel moistures are so low that some lightning strikes that see rain afterwards will smolder for days and weeks afterwards," he said.
Another round of storms with similar conditions is expected to develop tonight, he said.
Reporter Nicholas Ledden may be reached at 748-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com