The Lolo National Forest is in Very High Fire Danger, and over the past few weeks several fires have started, including a five-acre burn near Cyr last Wednesday, Aug. 1. Hot wheel bearings from a semi-truck that lost a tire started the blaze near mile marker 71 on the north side — causing both lanes of traffic on Interstate 90 to come to a halt. There was construction in the eastbound lane, and so traffic was already confined to two lanes. After approximately a half hour, emergency responders were able to get traffic going again, and it took fire crews from the Frenchtown Fire Department and the Superior and Ninemile Ranger Districts about three hours to contain the fire. No injuries were reported.

“Things are continuing to dry out and we are getting to a critical point,” said Mel Holtz with the Frenchtown Rural Fire Department. “There are a lot of human caused wildfires and people need to use extreme caution.”

THE LOLO National Forest is in Very High Fire Danger, which means fires will start easily, spread rapidly and have a quick increase in intensity immediately after ignition.

“These are very difficult to control,” said Jim Ward, Superior District Fire Management Officer. “I would expect we’ll be in Extreme Fire Danger in the near future. It may be another week before we have fire restrictions. We had good support from helicopters to keep many of these in check, until we could get folks on them.”

There has been about 10n human-caused fires, including cigarettes and dragging chains, and more than seven lightning-caused fires since late July. However, none of the fires have exceeded an acre and most are declared “out,” with a few still in patrol status. The two most recent lightning fires were from storms on July 27 and 28. They were located in Flat Creek and West Pardee Creek.

Two human-caused fires included one near Timberman Park in Superior, and one near I-90 near mile marker 48. The Timberman Park fire burned 0.3 acres on the river bank between West Riverside Avenue and the Clark Fork River at 2 a.m. on Sat. July 29. The Superior Fire Department took initial action in putting out the blaze and then the Superior Forest Service finished the mop-up portion.

AS OF Monday, Aug. 6, seven fires were burning in the northwest corner of Montana in the Kootenai National Forest and over the border into Idaho. The Davis and Porcupine fires are near Yaak, Mont., where Davis had burned 375 acres. The Porcupine was 17 acres and is 75 percent contained. Both started on July 29 and were caused by lightning.

Another Kootenai fire is Ten Mile, which had burned 372 acres as of Monday. The fire is off Highway 37 and started July 31 and was also caused by lightning. The Highway 37 Fire was 70 acres and 80 percent contained, and was human caused by discarded smoking material. The Reynolds Lake Fire located southwest of Darby had burned 1,068 acres and was 100 percent contained.

Despite the increase in fire activity, Ward said Mineral County, like most of northwestern Montana, is not in drought conditions, and even those in drought is only considered “moderate.”