USFS at Moran Meadows
Although a spot fire in the nearby Coal Creek drainage was suppressed yesterday, the U.S. Forest Service still has a fire incident team operating from Moran Meadows. Presumably, this is because it continues to offer a convenient helicopter landing zone.
The U.S. Forest Service is starting to get busy. They’ve now got a 3,000 acre blaze in the Bob, after a couple of fires merged, as well as several smaller actions elsewhere. According to the following article from the Daily Inter Lake, they did manage to suppress a small wildfire in the North Fork’s Coal Creek drainage yesterday. . .
A fire that rapidly expanded in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex has merged with another fire to the east to cover a total of 3,000 acres by Monday afternoon.
The Rapid Creek Fire first was sized up at less than acre at midday Sunday, but by the afternoon it had grown to 500 acres and by Monday morning it was estimated at 1,000 acres.
The fire is located on the east side of the wilderness about 27 miles west of Augusta. The fire has been churning through heavy, beetle-killed timber across the Flathead Forest’s boundary with the Lewis and Clark National Forest, where It burned into the 700-acre Elbow Pass Fire by Monday afternoon.
Well, the U.S. Forest Service had an incident team set up on Moran Meadow today, a short distance south of Polebridge. Reportedly, they were working with helicopter support (a shiny red one) to knock down a spot fire in the Coal Creek area. They appeared to be doing water drops.
So, it looks like its time to remind our loyal readership that this site has a Wildfire Information page, with links to a number of useful resources.
Also, the Daily Inter Lake, as in the past, is shaping up as the newspaper of record for wildfire news this year. You can read today’s report online, which centers on the situation in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.