Arlee wildfire grows to nearly 1,400 acres

by Jesse Davis
| July 27, 2013 9:00 PM

A wildfire that started early Saturday afternoon in the Firestone Flats area near Arlee exploded to nearly 1,400 acres by 8:30 p.m.

Jocko Canyon was evacuated and roads in and out of the area have been restricted.

According to a Confederated Salish and Kootanai Tribes fire dispatcher, the fire began as two fires on a day with a red flag warning with winds at 15 to 20 miles per hour and gusts up to 30 miles per hour, plus humidity between 10 and 15 percent.

“When the humidity gets below 25 percent, you have fire behavior that becomes more extreme,” the dispatcher said. “The fire was reported at 2 p.m. as just a small column of smoke, and by the time we were able to get our aircraft off the ground out of Ronan — which was just a few minutes — we had reports of a huge column of smoke.”

He said the cause remains under investigation, but there hasn’t been any lightning in that area for about three weeks and there have been a lot of huckleberry pickers and other people.

To battle the fire, a large number of resources have been mobilized, including three single-engine air tankers, three heavy air tankers, four helicopters, engines from tribal fire as well as several more on the way, two hotshot crews from the Lolo and Bitterroot forests and one Type 2 initial attack crew.

The Arlee and St. Ignatius fire departments are providing mutual aid and a pair of additional 20-person Type 2 crews have been requested.

“There are three roads that access the area, and the one that runs up to St. Ignatius is blocked to traffic going in," the dispatcher said." The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office has the road coming from Seeley Lake onto the reservation blocked to keep traffic out and then the Jocko Canyon Road is blocked.”

The Firestone Flats Fire put up a sizable smoke column visible from the Flathead Valley Saturday afternoon and evening.

A separate smoke column boiled up beyond the Swan Mountain Range east of the Flathead Valley as the Red Shale Fire in the Bob Marshall Wilderness had another active day.

The fire had grown to 7,618 acres Saturday.

The fire is burning in the Red Shale Creek drainage west of the North Fork of the Sun River on the east side of the wilderness area in the Lewis and Clark National Forest.

A crew of 12 people is stationed at Gates Park to monitor the fire and protect structures including the Gates Park administrative site and pack bridge as well as Wrong Creek and Rock Creek cabins.

A helicopter has been dropping water on spot fires near Gates Creek.

Several trails in the fire area have been closed.

According to a fire update Saturday evening, "The fire is clearing much of the 2-to 3-foot-high downfall and opening up the thick regrowth of lodgepole pine saplings that has blanketed the area following the 1988 Gates Park Fire."