North Fork Preservation Association

Fire in Glacier grows to 22,000 acres

From the Monday, July 31, 2006 online edition of the Missoulian . . .

High winds sent a wildfire howling out of Glacier National Park and onto the Blackfeet Reservation, with flame lengths as high as 200 feet early Sunday morning.

By daybreak, the Red Eagle fire had burned 22,000 acres and forced the evacuation of St. Mary on the eastern edge of Glacier Park.

“If you look at a topo map of Glacier Park, everything funnels southwest to northeast - and when the wind aligns with that, it can really howl through there,” said fire information officer Shannon Downey. “We were seeing torching and 200-foot flame lengths at 12:30 last night. That's extreme fire behavior.”

Not until about 3 a.m. did the fire die down at all, only to pick up again Sunday afternoon as a cold front moved into western Montana, stirring up wildfires in the Bitterroot Valley as well.

With forecasters warning of 50 mph gusts, the National Park Service evacuated the Cut Bank Creek campground, all Cut Bank area trails and Glacier Park's backcountry campground Atlantic Creek. The Blackfeet Tribe asked residents near Cut Bank Creek to be ready to evacuate.

U.S. Highway 89 between Browning and St. Mary remains closed, and visitors cannot enter Glacier Park from the eastern entrance.

Going-to-the-Sun Road is open from the west entrance to Rising Sun. Then visitors must turn around and go back over Logan Pass to exit the park.

Read the entire article . . .

Glacier fire blows up

From the Monday, July 31, 2006 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Flames reached as high as 200 feet as an eastern Glacier National Park forest fire covered at least 35 square miles Sunday.

The fire burned at least 22,200 acres by Sunday, and was expected to cover more by the time that next estimate would be calculated today, said Shannon Downey, a spokeswoman for a inter-agency team battling the flames. The fire was estimated at 8,600 acres — at least 13 square miles — late Saturday.

The Red Eagle fire — fueled by extremely dry timber — has been fanned by winds of 15 to 20 mph from the southwest. The winds are expected to shift — to be coming from the northeast with gusts up to 50 mph.

The fire jumped U.S. 89 south of St. Mary. Bulldozers are carving out lines to stop that eastward spread, Downey said. U.S. 89 is closed from Duck Lane Road near Babb in the north to Star School Road in the south.

St. Mary was evacuated Saturday. The Cut Bank Campground in the national park was evacuated Sunday with the area’s trails closed to the public. No numbers were available on how many people had to leave the their homes and campsites.

The cause of the fire that began Friday afternoon near Red Eagle Mountain is unknown.

Read the entire article . . .

Glacier fire jumps U.S. 89

From the Sunday, July 30, 2006 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

A wildfire burning in Glacier National Park blew up Saturday, prompting the evacuation of the St. Mary housing and maintenance areas after the fire jumped U.S. 89 south of St. Mary.

The fire was spotted Friday afternoon and originally burned about 8 miles southwest of St. Mary. Down-canyon wind shifts sparked the fire’s growth Saturday afternoon. Commercial property, residences and outbuildings are threatened.

At noon Saturday the fire was estimated at 765 acres, “but it has grown dramatically since then,” said Pat McKelvey, information officer with a specialized management team that arrived Saturday and was scheduled to take command of the fire Sunday morning.

Residents leaving St. Mary are asked to check in at the Cut Bank Creek Boarding School, 5 miles north of Browning, to let officials know they have left the St. Mary area. A shelter will be set up at the school.

Going-to-the-Sun Road is closed from the St. Mary entrance to Rising Sun. Visitors can still enter the park at other locations, and the Sun Road is open from the west entrance to Rising Sun.

The Montana Department of Transportation has closed U.S. 89 from Cut Bank Creek to Duck Lake Road.

Read the entire article . . .

Red Eagle fire in Glacier National Park makes "major run": Park housing in St. Mary evacuated

From the Sunday, July 30, 2006 online edition of the Missoulian . . .

The Glacier County sheriff's office urged residents here to evacuate Saturday, after strong winds pushed a wildfire in Glacier National Park toward town, park and fire officials said.

The Red Eagle fire, burning in mostly beetled-killed timber, was estimated at 765 acres at noon, "but it has grown dramatically since then," said Pat McKelvey, information officer with a specialized management team that arrived Saturday and was scheduled to take command of the fire Sunday morning. He did not have an updated estimate Saturday evening.

The fire made a "major run" Saturday afternoon along the south side of St. Mary Lake, said Glacier spokesman Dave Dahlen.
Numerous homes, businesses and outbuildings were considered threatened, according to the Northern Rockies Coordination Center in Missoula.

County officials were setting up a shelter at the Cut Bank Creek Boarding School five miles north of Browning, McKelvey said.

He said some residents had already evacuated, but he did not know how many. Dahlen added that the park evacuated its employee housing at St. Mary. The two referred further questions about evacuations to county officials, who could not immediately be reached for comment.

The blaze crossed U.S. Highway 89 just south of St. Mary Saturday afternoon, closing the road from Cut Bank Creek to Duck Lake Road, McKelvey said.

Park officials also closed Going-to-the-Sun Road from St. Mary to Rising Sun. Visitors could still access the park from other locations, park officials said, and Sun Road remained open from the west entrance to Rising Sun.

Read the entire article . . .

Tinder-dry forests near 2000 levels

From the Sunday, July 30, 2006 online edition of the Missoulian . . .

Heft a fair-sized stick out in Jack Kirkendall's neck of the woods - a log that's, say, four inches around - and you can bet it won't be heavy with water.

In fact, the dry crackle of summer has sucked the moisture right out of Kirkendall's forest, leaving logs with a water content of just 12 percent or so.

A kiln-dried piece of lumber compares at about 8 percent.

“It's been too long since we've seen rain,” said the wildfire management officer for the Bitterroot National Forest. “Plus, the convection oven's been on, just cooking away.”

Read the entire article . . .

Wolves in Montana - Public plays part in improved monitoring

From the Sunday, July 30, 2006 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

One was found by a bear hunter near Troy, another by herbology researchers working near the Pinkham Creek drainage south of Eureka, and yet another by average folks who live in the Marias Pass area.

In just a matter of months, three wolf packs have been discovered and included in the Northwest Montana wolf population. There’s likely more to be found, too, according to officials with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which has assumed management and monitoring responsibilities for the Northwest Montana wolf population from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Do the latest wolf counts represent a population growth trend or do they merely reflect better monitoring?

The answer is a mix of both, according to Kent Laudon, the state wolf management specialist for Northwest Montana.

Read the entire article . . .

Site Update: Fire Season

Fire season officially starts August 1. As usual, we'll try to stay on top of events and post relevant articles and links here.

Many useful wildfire resources can be found on our Fire Information Links web page, which is listed in the left-hand column of the gravel.org home page under "NFPA Site Links." A new addition this year is a link to the Montana Fires website, a weblog containing news and information on wildfires in Montana maintained by the staff of the Billings Gazette.

Clamps put on campfires

From the Thursday, July 27, 2006 online edition of the Hungry Horse News . . .

Restrictions on campfires and smoking in non-developed areas are set to go into effect Monday (July 31) in Northwest Montana as the hot and relatively dry weather continues.

Called Stage I Fire restrictions, they generally restrict campfires out of developed campsites as well as smoking on state, county and federal lands in Northwest Montana. That includes Kootenai National Forests, Glacier National Park, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation lands, and Flathead, Lake, Lincoln, and Sanders Counties. This also includes the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Great Bear Wilderness) lands on the Flathead, Lewis and Clark, Helena and Lolo National Forests.

Stage I fire restrictions allow:

* Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire or campfire only in developed recreation sites or improved sites,

* devices solely fueled by liquid petroleum or LPG fuels that can be turned on and off, including backpacker stoves and portable gas grills,

* smoking only in an enclosed vehicle or building, developed recreation site or while stopped in an area at least three feet in diameter that is barren or cleared of all flammable materials.

Contained wood stoves with spark arrester screens are allowed only in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

Read the entire article . . .

Flathead forest plan deadline nears

From the Thursday, July 27, 2006 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

A deadline for public comments on long-range forest plans for the Flathead, Lolo and Bitterroot national forests is looming in less than two weeks, and the Forest Service has received only about 200 comments.

“That is pretty low,” observed Chuck Sperry, who leads the Missoula-based planning team that has been developing the three forest plan proposals.

But Sperry said Tuesday he expects an increasing rush of comments as the Aug. 7 deadline approaches.

Read the entire article . . .

Big cabin in Big Prairie poses big questions for Glacier

From the Wednesday, July 19, 2006 online edition of the Hungry Horse News . . .

(Note: The accompanying photo did not appear in the Hungry Horse News. It was passed to us by an anonymous contributor.)

Big Prairie in Glacier National Park is home to many things. Herds of elk and deer. The occasional grizzly. Wolves. It does, in many ways, embody the concept of the North American Serengeti.

Now it has a big new cabin as well.

Landowner Bill Smith of Georgia has put the cabin on his property after receiving a variance from the county for a septic system.

The future of the parcel has been a point of contention for years - the previous landowner, Gerald Penovich, a Chicago attorney went back and forth with Glacier Park officials for years.

Read the entire article . . .

Water issues don’t stop at border

Editorial commentary from the Sunday, July 9, 2006 online edition of the Daily Inter Lake . . .

It’s out-of-sight and out-of-mind, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

Canada’s Flathead Basin is one and the same as Montana’s North Fork Flathead Basin on the western flank of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. There is indeed an international border dividing the two, but that doesn’t mean our views of this area need to stop at that boundary.

Fortunately, there is an effort to take a much closer look at the transboundary Flathead, prompted in large part by the potential for coal mine development in the northernmost headwaters that feed the North Fork Flathead River and ultimately Flathead Lake, one of the largest jewels in the Crown of the Continent.

Read the entire article . . .

FLBS puts price on Flathead Lake

An article in the Wednesday, July 5, 2006 online edition of the Bigfork Eagle includes a rather blunt evaluation of the downstream effects of mining on the North Fork of the Flathead River in British Columbia . . .

The goal is clear, according to Jack Stanford, director of the University of Montana Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS). "We need to understand what the value of this resource is in economic terms," he said, referring to the Crown of the Continent's "crown jewel" - Flathead Lake . . .

A proposal by coal mining companies to mine coal from the North Fork of the Flathead River in British Columbia is perhaps the greatest issue prompting a renewed vigor in determining the intrinsic value of the region's natural resources. The water quality detriments to the Flathead River and lake system from mountaintop mining practices in British Colombia are unknown. The threat is of concern to the scientific community.

Stanford said assessing the cumulative effects of full-scale mining for coal in the northern Flathead basin is appropriate, suggesting that if one mine is opened up then many will open. To date, scientists have been asked to assess impacts of just one or two mines. Stanford recognizes the high dollar value of the coal will determine whether or not it is mined.

"Can you mine and not influence Flathead Lake?" Stanford said that question has been posed to the scientific community. "That's an onerous thing to ask us," Stanford said. "But for me...as clean as this system is, the answer's 'No' without taking any samples at all." Stanford said expectations that all mining byproducts and pollutants would be absorbed and filtered by man-made ponds and the Elk River is difficult to believe. A lack of data on current mining effects on the Elk River compounds the issue . . .

Read the entire article . . .

NFPA 2006 Newsletter online

For those of you who are not on our mailing list or who can't wait for the mail, the Summer 2006 North Fork Preservation Association Newsletter is now online.

The newsletter is posted as a PDF document. A free PDF reader is available here.