Fire held to 6 acres

'It's just super dry out there'

The Daily Inter Lake

Another unusual November forest fire broke out west of Kalispell over the weekend, only to be quickly stopped by local firefighters.

The fire on a slope above Haywire Gulch was reported at about 3 a.m., with the Smith Valley Fire Department initially responding, said Dave Poukish, Kalispell fire program manager for the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

It started on Plum Creek Timber Co. land in a slash pile that had been on the slope for as long as five years, Poukish said, noting that the company says its contractors did not light the fire.

"We don't know how it got started," Poukish said. "That's still under investigation."

The fire burned into grass and open timber in unseasonably warm and dry conditions.

"Smith Valley worked hard on that thing," Poukish said. "They had it half-lined by the time we got there Saturday morning … It was about a six-acre burn when we got it stopped."

The fire burned onto two other areas of private land, and there are several houses in the immediate area, prompting an aggressive response that included the installation of waterlines around the fire perimeter.

"It's just super dry out there," Poukish said. "We are kicking up dust like it's August."

The Kalispell area is almost 5 inches behind average precipitation for this time of year.

Late last week, a fire in the Coon Hollow area west of Kalispell burned about 20 acres before it was stopped.