Smoke from the Sheep Fire, still smoldering south of Essex, was visible from the Flathead Valley on Friday, but forest officials monitoring the situation said it was mostly just from minor, isolated fire activity at higher elevations.

“It’s in the wilderness, on the opposite end of the fire from where Essex is, so danger-wise it’s low,” Manny Mendoza, the fire management officer for the Hungry Horse Ranger District, said late Friday afternoon. “If it was something down lower, near the railroad tracks or near Essex, we would definitely be ramping up, but right now we feel pretty safe.”

The 2,171-acre Sheep Fire was highly active in August and forced a temporary evacuation of Essex and two closures of U.S. 2 as it threatened to jump across the highway and enter Glacier National Park near Goat Lick.

The forest will keep an engine stationed near the fire to monitor it through the weekend in case fire activity increases.

Mendoza said that continuing dry conditions and a stretch of warm days recently have allowed a portion of the fire to start smoking and torching small areas of unburned vegetation on the Sheep Fire as well as other fires still burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

“It’s an unusual season with how dry it’s been. We’re praying for rain and praying for snow, but it just doesn’t want to come,” he added.

Rain has been scarce this fall, with less than half the average precipitation having fallen in the valley since Sept. 1. In Essex, a chance of showers is in the forecast beginning Sunday and continuing through Tuesday.

Mendoza said that statistically, there is about a 95 percent chance of a season-ending event such as heavy rain or snow putting a halt to wildfires in Northwest Montana by the third week in September.

“A lot of us cannot remember a summer and fall like this,” he said. “It’s unprecedented.”

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at [email protected].