Fire moves danger level to high

The wildland fire that broke out last Monday in the north fork of Murr Creek towards Highway 2 and up Thompson River was finally contained around 8:00 p.m. Thursday night.

The wildland fire that broke out last Monday in the north fork of Murr Creek towards Highway 2 and up Thompson River was finally contained around 8:00 p.m. Thursday night.

The DNRC's Unit Fire Supervisor, Calvin Minemyer, cited the 20-acre wildland fire as the first wildland fire the DNRC has been called to this season.

Minemyer said the activity of this fire is a sign that the fire season has officially begun in Sanders County.

"With the high winds and with the fire behavior and the spotting that it did, our fire danger rating numbers are putting us right in the high fire danger category right now," said Minemyer.

The fire broke out in an active logging unit and although the investigation as to the cause of the fire is still underway, Minemyer said they suspect the fire was sparked from a slash pile that burned last winter.

"It (the pile) lays under the dirt for a long time and when the winds come up it creeps out and hits fuel and starts a fire," said Minemyer. "It's fairly common."

Now that the fire danger is high, the DNRC is asking people to check "dirty burn piles" to see if there is still heat radiating from the burn piles as they can easily spark a fire.

It took four days for the fire crews to contain and control the fire. Minemyer said they do not call a fire contained until they have mopped up the smokes and hot sparks around the edges of the fire within at least 100 feet of the fire zone.

The fire is currently in "patrol status," meaning the DNRC will have crews at the fire site every day checking for hot spots and smokes. Minemyer suspected they will not call the wildland fire officially dead until the fall. As of Friday, the DNRC still had four engines with crew members patrolling the area for signs of smoke.

The DNRC alone sent one bulldozer, one excavator and seven engines to the fire. In addition to the DNRC's man power, the forest service sent a 20 person hand crew, engines from the Plains DNRC unit, the Plains Forest Service, the DNRC out of Libby, Kalispell and Stillwater along with a unit from Seeley Swan.

Minemyer said multiple units converged and attacked this fire quickly to make sure it is under control and doesn't spark up again this fire season so the crews are freed up and prepared for any additional fires that break out this summer.

"We have a lot of summer left so we want to make this fire is smokeless and feel confident we wont have to mess with this again when we have other fires, so we hit it pretty hard," said Minemyer.