Wind storm fans fires across region

Firefighters were battling a round of new wildfires in the Flathead Valley after high winds Tuesday downed power lines and fanned burn piles.

Nicole Stickney, public information officer for Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, identified four large blazes currently burning in the area.

Estimated at 40 acres on Wednesday afternoon, the Deer Run Fire was burning near Foys Lake and Haywire Gulch west of Kalispell.

“That’s the one everyone saw yesterday,” Stickney explained, adding that it was burning on private property. The fire was human-caused, both due to escaped debris burns, the DNRC reports. It was 75 percent contained as of Wednesday afternoon.

Multiple engines were dispatched to the fire, including a 20-man hand crew and heavy equipment.

“No evacuation orders at this time,” with regards to the Deer Run Fire, Stickney told the Daily Inter Lake. “No structures are directly threatened but structures are in the vicinity.”

She said that due to firefighter activity, the public should minimize traffic in the area and refrain from hiking at Herron Park.

The largest fire was the Lower Twin Fire, detected Monday and consuming about 300 acres north of McGregor Lake in the Meadow Peak area.

Stickney said that fire began with slash piles on Weyerhaeuser property. Multiple engines and heavy equipment were dispatched, and Type 2 helicopters will be utilized as needed.

The nearby South Lost Prairie Fire is estimated at 50 acres. It is burning on private land and was due to escaped burn piles, according to the Kalispell Interagency Dispatch Center.

Stickney said that two smaller fires, the Lynch Fire in the Island Lake area, and the Bluegrass Fire in the West Valley area, each measured about 2.5 acres. A Type 3 incident management team had taken control of all fires in the area, and heavy equipment and Type 2 helicopters were responding.

A 20-acre fire was burning in the Spotted Bear district on the Flathead Forest. It was reportedly due to an escaped warming fire, according to the dispatch center.

Open burning season runs through Nov. 30. The DNRC warns that fuel moisture conditions continue to be dry. The public is encouraged to refrain from burning debris until adequate precipitation has been received.

A chance of rain is in the forecast for Wednesday evening, with rain likely Thursday through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

Tuesday’s storm knocked out power across the region as trees fell on power lines. Outages impacted thousands of Flathead Electric Cooperative customers from Libby to West Glacier. Power to most customers was restored by the morning. As of Wednesday afternoon, an outage remained in the Hungry Horse area that impacted 87 customers.

At the peak of the storm Tuesday afternoon, about 5,000 customers in Whitefish were left in the dark.

Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial said wind knocked out power to the city’s seven traffic lights from about 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Officers were called in to direct traffic at major intersections.

“The public was good for the most part making four-way stops while the power was out,” Dial said.

The police department had help from the Whitefish Fire and Public Works departments to clean up and get things up and running after the storm, Dial said.

Trees across the county toppled in the wind that was gusting out of the southwest. A 49 mph gust was recorded at Glacier Park International Airport on Tuesday at 5:55 p.m.

In Kalispell, a gust snapped a large chunk of tree at Depot Park. Fortunately, it did not hit the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce office or any other structures in the park, chamber staff told the Inter Lake.