Big Horn County Fire Threatening 1,240 Homes
Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office announced Wednesday that the Poverty Flats Fire spanning tens of thousands of acres is threatening more than 1,240 homes in and around Crow Agency and Hardin in Big Horn County. It’s also threatening infrastructure, utilities and roads in the area.
According to Brian Mischel, disaster and emergency services coordinator for Big Horn County, the fire is 53,000 acres and growing.
The fire started yesterday in pine and grass. It's 5% contained according to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
Gianforte’s office said in a press release that the state secured a Fire Management Assistance Grant from the federal government to offset the costs of fighting the fire.
The grant allows the federal government to pay up to 75% of the state’s eligible firefighting costs, including for materials and supplies, mobilization and demobilization, equipment use and field camp expenses.
Each grant also generates more than $550,000 in federal mitigation funding, according to the governor’s office.
Big Horn County disaster and emergency services coordinator Brian Mischel said Wednesday evening that about 36 structures were evacuated due to the fire at around 1 a.m. Wednesday.
“From what I was hearing, a lot of homeowners stayed and actually helped fight the fire in their area,” Mischel says.
He says as far as he knows, no people were harmed or structures destroyed.
The American Red Cross set up a shelter in the multipurpose building in Crow Agency for people displaced by the fire.
Mischel says there’s an evacuation order for Dry Creek Road and the western side of North Tullock Creek Road. He asks that drivers avoid going down the Sarp Road, highway 384 between mile-markers 1 and 15 due to smoke and passing firefighting equipment.
According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Forestry and Wildland Fire Management on Crow Agency the fire is pulling four BIA engines, a squad of Crow firefighters and a helicopter to assist in keeping the fire on the east side of the Little BigHorn River.
The Big Horn Country Rural fire department has ordered a type two incident management team that should be in effect at 6 a.m. Thursday.
Evacuations In Broadwater & Sanders Counties
The Broadwater County Sheriff has issued a mandatory evacuation order for people living near the Woods Creek Fire burning near Boulder Lakes in the Big Belt Mountains.
The evacuation order issued at 9 a.m. is for Upper Duck Creek Road, Upper Gurnett Creek Road and Dry Gulch Road. The Broadwater sheriff says those areas are in imminent fire danger.
Law enforcement officers will be going door to door to notify residents.
Sheriff Wynn Meehan wrote in his order that first responders won’t come back for people who refuse to leave.
The sheriff’s office also issued pre-evacuation warnings on the east side of Highway 284 from Duck Creek to Graveley Lane, Ambush Drive, Battle Drive, and the Upper Duck Creek areas. Pre-evacuations remain in effect for Camas Creek Road northwest of White Sulphur Springs.
Warm weather and low humidity allowed the Woods Creek Fire to spread across national forest land in the Big Belt Mountains on Tuesday night.
A public meeting is scheduled July 28 at 6 p.m. at White Sulphur Springs High School Football Field and 8 p.m. at the Townsend Fairgrounds.
The Sander’s County Sheriff Tuesday evening issued evacuation orders for the northeast side of the power lines in Ashley due to the Thorne Creek Fire burning roughly 6 miles northeast of Thompson Falls.
According to a fire update from incident commanders, 206 residences are now under evacuation orders. Evacuation orders remain in place for residences from Cougar creek south to the intersection of Blue Slide Road and River View Lane, on the east side of Blue Slide Road in Graves North and South, and on the east side of the power lines in Harlow.
The Thorne Creek Fire is burning 10,300 acres and is 0% contained.
Severe weather pushed the 9,500-acre American Fork Fire west toward U.S. Forest Service cabins and private structures in the northeast Crazy Mountains, says fire Operations Section Chief Shawn Nagle.
“We’ll maintain our presence there and make sure we can mitigate any threats to these cabins or structures.”
The American Fork Fire is 10 percent contained, according to Inciweb.
Meanwhile, Nagle says weather conditions are improving on the 8,100-acre Balsinger Fire.
“Which is pretty conducive for us being able to limit fire growth with the resources we have on the ground.”
The fire is burning on national forest land in the Little Belt Mountains.
New Fires
The National Interagency Fire Center or NIFC reports there were 6 new fire starts in Montana on Tuesday, prompting light initial attacks by federal, state and local firefighters. Half of those fires were called out by Tuesday night.
The largest of the new fires starts is the Poverty Flats Fire, burning 55,000 acres as of Wednesday afternoon. The fire is burning in timber and brush 16 miles northeast of Hardin in Big Horn County and on the Crow Reservation. It is showing extreme fire behavior and threatening several structures. The cause of the Poverty Flats Fire is unknown and is zero percent contained.
NIFC reports there are 35 uncontained large fires and 40 active fires in total covering more than 371,000 acres in the Northern Rockies. That includes Montana, Idaho, North Dakota and parts of Wyoming.
The National Interagency Situation Reporting Programs identifies 72 percent of the current fires in Montana as human caused. The rest are lightning caused.
Montana Disaster and Emergency Services reports 45 of the state’s 56 counties have Stage-1 or Stage-2 fire restrictions in effect.
Both the Northern Rockies and National fire preparedness levels are at 5, the highest level because of widespread fire activity.
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