Agencies prepare for f ire season

by John Hamilton

When it comes to wildfire, complacency is the enemy; and the makings of another hot fire season seem to be in place.

With the memory of the last two fire seasons in Sanders County freshly burned into our thoughts – who can forget about the Copper King Fire which burned over 25,000 acres in 2016 or the Highway 200 complex of blazes that burned at least twice that amount of ground in this area last year – local fire control officials are sounding the alarm early about the prospects for wildfire in 2018.

“The weather pattern is tracking pretty similar to what it was last year,” Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District Fire Management Officer (FMO) Scott Schrenk said Tuesday. “It was about at this time last year when we had the quick change and the 100 degree days started. The early forecast for this year is calling for a more prolonged dry spell and the potential for a longer, later season.”

“It looks like the conditions are shaping up pretty much like last year,” Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Plains Unit FMO Doug Browning agreed. “The spring rains we have gotten have been nice but they have really made the grass grow, and that could be fuel for fires later on this season.”

Cabinet Ranger District FMO Jeff Muenster is also seeing shades of 2017 creeping into this year’s fire forecast.

“Predictive services have been forecasting high pressure weather systems for the summer, and our precipitation to date has been tracking very similar to last year,” Muenster said. “Our snow pack has been coming off the mountains fast and we could expect conditions to worsen if this pattern continues.”

Scattered wildfire activity has already begun to flare up in western Montana.

Muenster said that there was one lightning fire discovered, which was promptly extinguished, in the Whitepine Creek area, earlier this month, and that there has already been several wildfires in the Libby area as well.

Speaking for the DNRC, Browning reports that the Plains Unit has put seven wildfires out so far this year, with six of those being escaped burns and the other a five and a-half acre, lightning-caused fire located about 35 miles up Thompson River.

Local fire control agencies, like those in Plains and Trout Creek, have been sharing their resources with other firefighting organizations, many in the southwest U.S., up to this point but those forces will probably be held closer to home as the local fire season heats up. Schrenk and Muenster report that some personnel from the Plains/Thompson Falls and Cabinet RD offices are still off on assignment as of early this week.

Whatever fires may come our way, Browning says the key is being prepared. “We are gearing up and getting ready,” he said, “and are ready to respond.”