Planned fire puts out plenty of smoke
The Daily Inter Lake
A prescribed fire on the Swan Range put off a towering smoke column Wednesday afternoon southeast of the Flathead Valley.
The burn was planned to cover about 1,000 acres at the head of the Lost Creek drainage east of the town of Swan Lake.
A helitorch was used to ignite the fire. Ignition was half finished by 3 p.m. and was expected to be completed by 5 p.m.
"We're really happy with it," Rick Connell, fire management officer for the Flathead National Forest, said on Wednesday afternoon. "It's meeting our objectives and we're supposed to have a fairly decent chance of precipitation tomorrow."
About 25 people were assigned to the fire. Some of them were stationed on the Swan Crest to monitor the fire, which is expected to be contained mostly by rock barriers, Connell said.
The fire was burning in heavy dead and downed timber, producing the smoke column that was highly visible from the Flathead Valley.