Local talks similarities between fires decades apart

A Havre man who fought the Centennial Mountain Fire in the Bear Paw Mountains in 1984 says there are many similarities between this summer's East Fork Fire and the blaze he battled long ago.

Jim Tautges of Havre had been on the Bear Paw Volunteer Fire Department about three of his 13 total years, he said, when lightning struck Aug. 19, 1984, and started the Centennial Mountain Fire on Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.

"As a volunteer, you just dropped whatever you were doing and went to the firefighting," Tautges said.

The crew of about 20 volunteers had never seen anything that big and serious before, Tautges said, adding that he would've offered his services to help put out the East Fork Fire, but at his age, he figured he'd better stay home this time.

"It's a dangerous business. It's smoking hot, ain't much fun," he said.

The Centennial Fire, Havre Daily had reported, ultimately burned 11,650 acres, all but 1,460 acres of it on Rocky Boy. A flare-up Aug. 26, 1984, a restart that became the source of accusations and debate, reignited a fire that was nearly put out. The East Fork, which started Aug. 27, burned almost twice that, 21,500 acres.

Tautges said he realized there were many similarities while reading about the East Fork Fire.

During the East Fork, the pavilion of Bear Paw Lake - where a hub for communication and activity had been set up - became packed with water, juice and other beverages, as well as snacks and food items galore within days of the fire's start. In the Bear Paws, landowners reported receiving fresh-cooked foods from neighbors. People also donated clothes, food and manpower through the Havre Fire Department and District 4 Human Resources Development Center. Others set up ways to donate money to help farmers rebuild fence lines and such.

As with the East Fork, the people came through for each other against the Centennial Fire as well.

A Havre Daily News article about the Centennial Fire titled "Hundreds gave help," hailed the generous people of the area as the heroes.

"Hundreds of individuals, businesses and church groups donated their time and food to feed firefighters whose number was estimated at 1,120," the article reported.

People donated soda, ham, eggs bacon and pancakes. Someone made 25 doughnuts, the article says.

The other parallel of people's generosity was the volunteer boots on the ground that stomped into action from Day 1 during the East Fork Fire. Ranchers like Keith Raty, Marvin Cross and Ted Crowley were just a few who worked together to protect their buildings, their cattle and each other. Others, too many to count, came, some from counties to the east, west and south, with equipment in tow and ready to spray water and create dozer lines.

Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Area Manager Clive Rooney lauded, in an August interview, Montana volunteers who were battling the fire as "competent firefighters."

"They know their business. They know how to run their equipment, and they care about their land," Rooney said.

A Sept. 6, 1984, Letter to the Editor by Dale and Sharlene Molyneaux shows that people working together and looking out for each other via generosity, technical know-how and pure grit is nothing new to the people of north-central Montana:

" ... the many men who rushed in our ranch to fight the fire in order to save our buildings and home as well as grassland, the generous people who prepared and sent food to help feed the many dedicated men who risked their lives in dozers, with shovels, swatters, and anything they could use to battle the blazes, those who brought feed for our livestock, those who offered pasture, and it was very obvious that the many prayers of all who prayed were answered as no human lives were lost, no homes burned," the Molyneauxs wrote.

A day before, Sept. 5, 1984, Alkali Springs correspondent Robbie Lucke wrote in the Howdy Beaver column, "The people, of course, were the heroes. Farmer after farmer from the north country, the south country, the Hi-Line, and down the valley hauled truck after truck of water to the mountains. ... Many businesses donated so much food it could never be eaten."

When it comes to logistics, little, it seems, has changed. One the most evident parallels, a topic that DNRC, Chippewa Cree Tribe's Forestry Department, county and reservation officials, as well as hoards of landowners spent hours discussing, was how the fire was managed or, to some, mismanaged.

Because the fire started on Rocky Boy but spread to private land, there was, and continues to be, the issue of jurisdiction. Ranchers and landowners had expressed frustration and said their help, should it have been unrestrained, would have stopped the fire but was curtailed at the beginning, as reported in the Sept. 26 article, "Sivertsen holds second East Fork Fire meeting."

Sivertsen said, though communications was an issue, ranchers and volunteers had the means to contain the fire to the reservation but weren't allowed to do so.

"We can talk resources all we want, but we had the manpower," Sivertsen had said. "We had the equipment had we been able to go ahead and do what the ranchers had wanted to do, we could have resolved this."

The Oct. 5 article, "Dispute over fire management continues" explored other concerns and complaints about mismanagement.

In the Sept. 13, 1984, article, "Volunteer fire chief wants investigation of blaze," then-Bear Paw Volunteer fire chief Giles Gregoire had a similar complaint:

"Gregoire said one of the questions still uppermost in some people's minds is why help offered by the Bear Paw Volunteer Fire Department was refused. The Bear Paw unit was called to help battle the fire the next morning."

The article, "Ranchers, firefighters question handling of Mt. Centennial fire" reinforces what Gregoire said:

"Rancher Conrad Nystrom expressed frustration over the fire management because he thinks that the first fire should have been contained and patrolled better and that the volunteers' help should have been accepted before the fire burned out of control."

Tautges said weather conditions were similar as well.

"The weather was bad then, they had a wind storm," Tautges.

In "Ranchers, firefighters question handling of Mt. Centennial fire," BIA forester Robert Sienko blamed the windy weather for making the fire move fast, not the lack of manpower.

Bob Jones of Bureau of Indian Affairs and Rocky Mountain Regional Office Fire Plans, as reported in the Sept. 5 East Fork Fire article, "Fire 70 percent contained by Monday," emphasized the role weather had. From its inception, Jones had said, tribal and accompanying forces fought the fire with all they had, but the conditions - heat, wind and dry tinder - made it nearly impossible to have stopped it from spreading once it was ignited. By the time the wind kicked up, there was little anyone could do. That fire was going to do its thing and the best option was to wait it out and move out of the way," Jones had said.

Despite 33 years of technological advancement since the Centennial Fire was purged, communication problems, albeit in different forms, persisted to be a problem during the East Fork Fire.

Lack of communication was a problem at times, the "Meeting reviews actions at the East Fork Fire" article says. Cathy Gregoire, a dispatcher with the Bear Paw Volunteer Fire Department, HDN reported, had said some people did not feel they needed to communicate over the radios. She suggested volunteers and ranchers battling the fire check in more often. During a six-day span, Gregoire had said she heard mothers and wives terrified because they hadn't heard from their sons and husbands in days.

Until Triangle brought in mobile cell towers, communication between volunteers and those at the command center, or contact between volunteers and their loved ones, remained scattered.

Tautges said that was somewhat better than the 1984 fire.

"At that time," he said, "we just had basic radios and stuff."

There were areas in which there was no kind of communication with anyone, Tautges added.

Lastly, the end of both fires prompted talk of working toward a unified collaborative front to be better prepared for future fires.

In the Oct. 4 "Meeting reviews actions at the East Fork Fire," Chinook Volunteer Fire Department Chief and Blaine County Fire Warden Kraig Hanson said he thinks that in future responses, there should be more of a unified command between the two counties and Rocky Boy.

In "Locals take over East Fork Fire," Sept. 19, Chippewa Cree Office of Forestry Fire Manager Theron Oats said during a wrap-up meeting that he would like to meet and talk about ways to create more cohesion between Rocky Boy and firefighting operations in Blaine and Hill counties, with the goal to create a lasting relationship that would make a more prepared firefighting team next time a fire hits the area.

"Everyone agreed it's important to learn from this for future fires because there will be more fires in Montana," DNRC Incident Commander Don Pyrah had said.

In "Agreement a new aim," a Centennial Fire article, the subject is "better cooperation and coordination of fire efforts." Again, Giles Gregoire is the voice.

To foster that cooperation, the Havre Daily News reported, Gregoire said he asked Rocky Boy officials to attend the Hill County Fire Council meeting.

"Out of this major fire will come a better understanding among all concerned," Gregoire said. "I look forward to better communication with reservation officials in the future."

Which raises the question, what has happened since and why wasn't a stronger collaboration in place in time for the East Fork Fire?

Tautges said he believes that, while the desire and effort of that collaboration may have been genuine and somewhat realized after the Centennial Fire, the people who lived through that fire, who were part of the groups that battled together, have moved on. As new people came in, the relational dynamic reverted back to one of disunity.