Rain, cooler weather help fire crews

Light rain and a drop in temperatures helped fire crews battling the Reynolds Creek Fire on Monday, and Glacier National Park officials are hoping to reopen the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road as far as Logan Pass as early as Wednesday.

However, park spokeswoman Denise Germann noted that there were no guarantees to allowing visitors to drive to the popular pass on Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The portion of Sun Road between St. Mary and Big Bend has been closed since soon after the now 3,170-acre fire began July 21. It has been burning north of St. Mary Lake.

“This is our busiest time of year,” Germann noted. “The number of people that could be anticipated on the west side of the road ... if you go there on a normal day, with both exits and entrances open, it’s very congested.”

She said St. Mary Campground may also reopen this week, although the Logan Pass Visitor Center presents a bigger challenge. The park’s waste water  pumper truck needs to service the center three to four times per day and is unable to navigate the winding west side of the road. Fire officials must make the determination of when the fire is sufficiently controlled to open the Sun Road’s east side.

The St. Mary Visitor Center reopened to the public on Monday morning.

By Monday night after light rain and lower temperatures allowed fire crews to get ahead of the blaze, the fire was 45 percent contained, including much of the west end of the fire near Sun Road. However, spokesman Mike Cole hedged the apparent gain by noting predicted higher temperatures later in the week.

“It’ll start warming back up later this week and popping smokes up again pretty quick,” Cole said. “This humidity will slow it down some, but it won’t really go out.”

More personnel arrived throughout Monday, bringing the total number of firefighters to 691 by evening. Scattered, heavy thunderstorms had been forecast for the day and into the night, with the potential to both extinguish flames and pose new dangers on the ground.

“The slopes are steep and when the rain hits those hillsides that have lost their vegetative cover, if you’re down to mineral soil and you get a lot of rain, those soils that are overheated become hydrophobic,” said Cole, an information officer for the firefighting team assigned to the fire. “We call them debris flows — mud coming down and often carrying trees with it.”

However, little rain had fallen in the area of the fire as of press time Monday night, and Cole said most parts of the fire appeared to have gotten less than a tenth of an inch of precipitation by 8 p.m. One exception was the south-central part of the fire, where crews were pulled out after heavier showers created the potential for falling debris and twisted ankles.

“It’s kind of a blessing and a curse. A little rain and it lowers the fire activity, but then it gets sloppy enough and slippery enough that you can’t get the work done that you need to get done,” Cole said.

Firefighters also spent the day putting out several spot fires in the Two Dog Flats area on the east end of the fire. Many of those have arisen from “Roman candling” of subalpine fir and spruce trees.

“Those two species in particular have branches all the way to the ground,” Cole said. “You’ll have fire start out down at the ground, and it will heat up those branches and shoot up out of the tree. ... They’ll shoot out embers in 360 degrees around them, and can start [new spot fires] when they land.”

As of Monday, firefighting costs totaled $4.27 million for the Reynolds Creek Fire.

Online:

Inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4405 

Reporter Samuel Wilson may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.