Wildfire season cooking up worry in past week

The wildfire season in the Flathead Valley got underway in the past week, with a large fire in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and another southwest of Olney.

There are no fires currently burning in Glacier National Park or on the Flathead National Forest close to Columbia Falls, though thick smoke from both local fires and regional blazes in Washington and Oregon have fouled the air, making it unhealthy to breathe.

The high country of Glacier Park experienced a brief rain early Monday morning along the Continental Divide, but not nearly enough to quell the fire danger.

The Skillet Fire southwest of Olney is the major concern at the moment. 

Great Basin Complex Incident Management Team 7 assumed command of the fire on Sunday morning. Nearly 180 firefighters were assigned to the 2,500-acre blaze on the Flathead and Kootenai national forests.

The fire was moving north and northeast toward an area that burned in the 2023 East Fork Fire. Operations Section Chief Chad Olson said the movement north was ideal because numerous homes and structures are located to the south along Good Creek and Alder Creek roads. Residents in those areas were ordered to evacuate Saturday. At least 50 structures were considered threatened.

The hope is to keep the fire from moving south.

A dry cold front blew through Saturday night and lowered temperatures, which had been in the 90s last week. It also brought winds which stoked the blazes, but no new fires were reported because of it.

The biggest fire in the region is the Silvertrip Fire in the heart of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

It’s estimated at over 6,000 acres and is burning on both sides of Silvertip Creek, southwest of the Pentagon Cabin.

Trail 83, the Spotted Bear River Trail, a major route into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, is closed from Silver Tip Cabin to its junction with Wall Creek.

A host of other trails are closed as well near the fire including:

Sergeant Creek–Corporal Creek Trail (Trail 88)

Closed from Spotted Bear River to its junction with Trail 584 (Harrison Creek Trail).

Harrison Creek Trail (Trail 584)

Closed from its junction with Corporal Creek Trail 88 to its junction with Trail 103 and Trail 89.

Trail 103

Closed from its junction with Trail 524 to its junction with Trails 89 and 584.

Silvertip Trail (Trail 89)

Closed in its entirety.

Wall Creek Trail (Trail 90)

Closed from its junction with Trail 83 to its junction with Trail 229.

West Fork Wall Creek Trail (Trail 229)

Closed in its entirety.

After a wet June July saw minimal rain and the beginning of August promises to be hot and dry as well, with highs in the mid 90s and no chance of rain for the next week.

The smoke has made the air either unhealthy of very unhealthy to breathe, obscuring the sun.

In Washington State, things are even worse in the Spokane area, as 5,000 homes have had to evacuate and more than 600 structures have been lost in a fire complex near that city.

Photos show entire blocks of some neighborhoods leveled by the fires.