CHOTEAU (AP)
Fire crews Sunday continued to monitor a 3,800-acre blaze in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area and aircraft dropped water on the fire’s south and east sides, but an active fire battle was not under way. The fire that was reported late Wednesday and spread across about 6 square miles was attributed to lightning, and brought the closure of several trails. Weather early Sunday was conducive to relatively calm burning but the Fool Creek fire became more active in the afternoon and gusty winds were forecast for today, said Punky Moore, fire information officer. She said monitoring rather than battling the fire is consistent with the management plan for the wilderness on U.S. Forest Service land. Moore said 48 people were assigned to the fire. Their work included protecting Forest Service cabins, recording weather information, observing the fire’s behavior and providing field reports to the command post in Choteau, she said. The fire is burning mostly in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. A small part of the burned area is in the Flathead National Forest. Moore said the blaze was about 2 miles from the wilderness boundary. The water was dropped as part of an effort to keep the fire an ample distance from the boundary, she said. The Bob Marshall covers about 1 million acres. Moore said trail closures do not mean that people must scrap plans for backcountry trips. Many other routes are available and the Forest Service will help people revise their plans, she said. In the Bitterroot area of southwestern Montana, conditions were calm after 19 new fires followed a thunderstorm Friday evening, said Nan Christianson, spokeswoman for the Bitterroot National Forest. The fires reported after that storm all were on less than an acre, Christianson said. A Forest Service official in Dillon said the 100-acre Bachelor fire 29 miles southwest of there was declared contained Saturday evening. Several small fires one of them burning just one tree were reported in the Beaverhead- Deerlodge National Forest during the weekend, said Jack de Golia of the forest staff. Given rainfall on Saturday, the fire danger in southwestern Montana was reduced to “high,” de Golia said. The ratings are low, moderate, high, very high and extreme. The ratings are based on wind, temperatures and the dryness of grass, shrubs and trees.
