19 wildfires burn county

About 28 separate fires raged this past weekend in Sanders and Mineral Counties.

According to Maria Helterline of the Plains Dispatch Center, there were 22 fires reported Saturday and six fires reported Sunday. She said that the Plains Ranger District responded to 10 fires and the Superior Ranger Station responded to 10. The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation responded to nine fires.

Plains also assisted the reservation with some of their fires and also assisted Nine Mile with one of their fires.

Ned Winebrenner, the Dispatch Manager for the Plains Dispatch Center, said that, as of Tuesday, there were still quite a few fires burning in the area.

“There are seven that have not been called out yet,” Winebrenner said. He said that all but one of those fires is in Plains, the other one is just outside of St. Regis.

The largest fire out of all of the burns in Sanders and Mineral Counties was the Arnold Road fire, which is about seven miles west of Plains and started Saturday. They received the call near 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Winebrenner said the Arnold fire burned 22 acres.

Cal Minemyer, the fire supervisor for the Plains office of the DNRC, said that the fire on Arnold Road was “quite a handful.”

“If it wouldn't have been from the effort from the air and the forces on the ground, the outcome for that fire could've gone in the complete opposite direction,” he said. Minemyer said that they had a heavy airtanker, two dozers, two water canons, five engines, three helicopters, a 20-person crew, and a 20-person Bitterroot Hotshot Crew to fight the flames.

Lea Mercier, assistant fire chief with the Plains/Paradise Rural Fire Department, said they with the Arnold Road fire during the weekend and with eight personnel on scene. He said the DNRC also assisted with about eight personnel. A couple of private fire crews also came to help with Arnold.

All the crews had air support.

“We had bucket helicopters and one heavy tanker come in and drop a level of retardent on the fire,” Mercier said.

The Plains rural firefighters spent 10 hours on scene. By the time they came home, his crews were definitely exhausted.

“Our guys did a great job,” Mercier said. “But things were pretty hectic there for a while.”

Because the fire burned close to one of the houses, the rural assistant fire chief called in a city crew, specifically ready for structure protection. Luckily, that wasn't necessary because the flames never reached the house.

Mercier said the DNRC spent most of Saturday night at Arnold doing patrols. They were still checking the containment perimeter and looking for hot spots at deadline.

Minemyer said that all the fires in the area, with the exception of the Arnold Road fire, were all relatively small and caused by lightening. The fire on Arnold Road was the only human-caused fire of the weekend and is currently under investigation.

“Other than the Arnold Road fire, the biggest fire the DNRC was a part of was an acre,” he said. “The rest were around a quarter of an acre large.”

Rick Cavill, an assistant fire management officer with the Plains Ranger District, said that they responded to 10 fires over the weekend and the largest one they saw was a half of an acre.

“For the most part they were lightening fires from the storms we got over the weekend,” he said. “The lightening mixed with the very dry conditions caused the fires.”

As far as Mineral County is concerned, John Woodland, the Superior Fire Chief, said that his fire department only responded to one fire call.

“We went out early Saturday morning on fire call, to a fire that was visible from Mullan Road,” he said. However since it was high up, he said that the forest service actually handled it.

Fire Manager for the Superior Ranger District, Bob Derleth, said that there were a total of seven fires on Saturday and three on Sunday, all of them were less than a quarter acre. However, on Monday, the Superior Ranger District was battling a new fire near Tamarack Creek in St. Regis that started late Monday afternoon. The St. Regis fire department also responded.

According to Minemyer the Tamarack Creek fire had three helicopters fighting it and retardent had been requested, but there were so many fires throughout the area and in Missoula County that they couldn't get any retardent. Even without the help, firefighters managed to get the flames under control. As of Tuesday, the Tamarack Creek fire was fully contained but still smoking.

“It burned about three-fourths of an acre and there is a fire line around it,” Derleth said. He also said that everything went pretty well and that there were a couple helicopters that came from Plains that really helped the Forest Service out with the fire.