Fire danger increasing in county
Firefighters are ensuring all grass fires are getting put out quickly and safely as they continue to attend call-outs. (Erin Jusseaume/ Clark Fork Valley Press)
As the summer days continue to heat up, the ground is drying out and the fire danger is creeping up.
Over the past week there have been a handful of grass fires that have sparked up around Sanders County.
Most recently, there was one in Trout Creek along Highway 200 as well as one along Montana 28, to which fire crews also attended.
The small acre-sized grass fire in Trout Creek was caused from a downed powerline. Members of the public raised the alarm through local dispatch, which was able to secure crews from the volunteer department in Trout Creek and also the ranger station.
Authorities said it didn’t take long to get the fire under control, and with the help of the local power company on site, further aided in assisting of safe fire fighting with cutting power to the downed lines.
Local Plains DNRC office personnel attended the Montana 28 fire, with standby assistance from the Plains-Paradise Rural Fire Department.
The grass fire was only measured to be three-tenths of an acre; however, just two days prior fire departments had attended and extinguished another grass fire not far from this one.
Fire Supervisor Doug Browning said that both grass fires were currently under investigation as to what caused them.
With little to no moisture falling from the skies in the past few weeks, authorities are urging people to be careful when out and about to ensure no further sparkups occur.
Due to a number of grass fires that continued to pop up over the weekend just gone; authorities had just launched a new social media page on Facebook to help enable residents within Sanders County to keep accurately updated on whats happening.
According to U.S. Forest Service Fire Technician John Hamilton, the page titled Sanders County Wildland Fire Information page is the best source of what is happening outside the local newspapers.
“In order to provide the most current information stream possible, the administrators will obtain current information provided by First Responders, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This page will not be interactive. Only factual, verifiable information will be provided. Links to other pages or sources of pertinent information, and contact telephone numbers will be provided by affected agencies on a case-by-case basis,” as stated on their facebook page description.
More news on this new information page to come in next week’s issue.