Attached File

It is definitely a love hate relationship with the weather at this time of the year!

Some activity in the Bitterroot/Missoula areas but not bad so far.

Lot of air tanker activity heading to the small fires in the Sapphire Range and P-burg areas.

A fire just brewed up this afternoon on the backside of Lolo Peak. Not surprised since the big storm that came over that way dropped a lot of lightning up there Sat afternoon.

I have a great view of it from the house.

Didn't see anything up there this morning when out doing lawn work but things just kicked into gear.  Not a place to worry about since its way up the south fork of Lolo Creek.  Hope the smoke doesn't lay down into the valley tonight.

Lolo Peak Fire 1

Lolo Peak fire 2

The media reports the fire "just" west of Florence but its on the other side of the Bitterroot crest about 9 air miles up and over the crest from Florence.

It's calmed down a lot right now.  The winds likely caused it a run into and into some fuels.  It looks like it's about 1/2 way up from the South Fork of Lolo Creek on a very steep slope just below Lolo Peak. If it runs up hill more it will hit the tree line.

The weather report says no rain for the next 10 days and in the 80's so it will likely just do its thing in that drainage with no risk to the private lands 8 miles due north.

If any of those fires on the Idaho side of the Bitterroot range should get into the wilderness area...they can't fight it, they can only contain it to the wilderness area. 

The Lolo Peak fire has been in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness (Montana side) since late last week.  They were doing tanker drops on the part outside the wilderness (were it started) last Wed.

This afternoon there were two columns, one in the original location & another further south in the wilderness, coming up.  The fire is pretty quiet until mid-afternoon  then it brews up. Fortunately the air drainage down Lolo Creek is keeping the smoke out of Lolo and pushes it south.

It's real nasty & very steep ground so I don't see them doing anything but containment till the snow flies or we get substantial rain.

Had a 20 acre fire west of BUTTE in the "Big Butte Shooting area" likely cause is recreational shooter.I  guess  some folks just don't realise that steel jacket ammo can spark on rocks or that tracers are not for summer use

Another hero lost today this time fighting the Lolo Peak fire.  RIP

According to the news the firefighter (man) was killed by a falling snag when working in the McClain Creek area.  

That area isn't anywhere near the actual fire but the IC strategy has been to build a fuel break control line down Lolo creek and then down the Bitterroot Valley to Bass Creek.  It's sort of a worse-case scenario and the actual fire is many miles west of the Bitterroot Valley, and about 1/2 way up the Lolo Creek drainage south of Hwy 12.

So it seems that the crew person was killed working on the fuel break task.

Please keep Mr Witham, his family, and his crew in your thoughts and prayers.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/firefighter-killed-in-lolo-peak-accident-was-experienced-hotshot/article_9fefb35a-b224-5fc3-8378-7977256c6de3.html

Vista Grande IHC 2016 crew video...

[youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rD-AGHjmYKQ[/youtube]

Also keep in your thoughts all the employees of the Lolo NF who are suffering the loss of two men on their ground in the past two weeks and who lost one of their own IHC memebers, Justin Beebe, last season.

I think there are a lot fatalities are due to falling snags.

When I was on a crew in the late 70's I was on a fire in western OR. They sent us into a division as night crew to mop up. We didn't get into our area until it was already dark, and it was smoky that cut down on visibility. We worked all night and when the sun came up we saw they had put us into a massive burned out tree/snag patch.  We were lucky that there wasn't any winds that night that would have tipped numerous trees/snags with the bases burned out. We chewed out the ICP and said we're weren't going back into the area until they sent the fallers in to safe the area.

That was a big lesson learned for me when later I took crews/squads into fire areas as a squad or crew boss.

BTW we're getting a lot of smoke from a bunch of fires in the Idaho side of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. The southern 2/3rds of the Bitterroot Valley is really getting smoked out from them.

Losing someone was always my biggest fear when I was a squad boss crew boss and strike team leader prayers for his family and co- workers.

The front came thru the northern Bitterroot this afternoon. They evacuated the folks living on/off Hwy 12 between Graves Creek and Ropers because of the front coming thru.  It blew a lot but is calm now. We got a light-moderate rainfall and cooling winds that have help clear things up a bit but we could have used more rain.

It's still hazy but I can see the mountain sides a bit to the west, but no where near clear.  But clear enough I don't smell the stink of smoke as much. although the down-canyon air drainage from Lolo Creek drifts some stink in periodically.  While an improvement after being socked in for several days we'll see what happens tonight when the smoke lays down.

We'll see if anything really happened up on the fire, and the latest news report said any fire was still 1.25 mi from any building.

If you want to see what most of the large fires in the region are doing as far as growth, here is a link to the IR maps. These are flown every night, interpreted and then posted on the ftp site.

http://ftp.nifc.gov/incident_specific_data/n_rockies/2017_fires/

Well it is a bit clearer this morning, yesterday we had a good amount of rain and it was gusty in the wind department, but it did clear out the smoke some, heard yesterday we have had a start a couple of miles from my house, but they got the bucket drops on it right away and was able to knock it down pretty quick..  This time of year is always a challenge...