Area fires grow little overnight

The Daily Inter Lake

Firefighters continued to keep a lid Friday on the Skyland Fire near Marias Pass and the Garceau Fire southwest of Polson.

The Garceau Fire, still estimated at 2,800 acres, is burning in heavy timber and steep terrain about 11 miles southwest of Polson. Firefighters have mainly focused on bulldozing a line on the northern flank to prevent the fire from spreading into valuable timber owned by the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes.

There were more than 230 people working on the fire Friday. It is the largest in Western Montana.

The Skyland Fire, still estimated at 420 acres, has a fire line on 30 percent of its perimeter and contingency line around about 75 percent. The firefighting effort has mainly focused on keeping the fire west of Skyland Road.

There's also been an effort to cut a line through heavy timber in the old 1998 Challenge Fire burn to fully contain the fire.

"We had a little bit of torching activity, but mostly interior burning, nothing to worry about," fire information officer Dale Warriner said of Friday's fire activity.

But Warriner said a strong wind is forecast for late Sunday.

"That will be the test," he said. "If we survive that, we will probably be going home a few days later."

Meanwhile, initial attack firefighters continued to successfully suppress fires emerging from lightning strikes across Northwest Montana. The most recent wave of lightning swept over the region Thursday night.

There were two fires west of Kalispell, two on the Tally Lake Ranger District, one in Glacier National Park in the Middle Fork Flathead drainage and a series of fires in the Libby dispatch area.

One fire on the Tally Lake district was causing enough trouble for fire bosses to call in a retardant tanker and a helicopter late Friday afternoon. The fire, located of west of Sylvia Lake near Tepee Mountain, had burned two acres and was growing.

Other fires were stopped at less than an acre, according to reports from Flathead National Forest and Department of Natural Resources fire information personnel.