"The Harleys are still out there on the highways en masse; all the resorts, outfitters, restaurants and shops are still open for business..."

I'm not sure where you've been, but my recent trip to Idaho and Montana was met with closed roads, trails, forests and parks. I was in Boise last week to visit my spouse - a helicopter manager with the Forest Service - and most of our outdoor plans were derailed by fire. Likewise, my trip to Missoula to visit a friend for some outdoor activities was also thwarted by fire. And the whitewater operators may be open, but they're not on the water at all points.

So yes, I agree that visitors should continue with their plans - but don't expect that some things haven't changed because of Mother Nature's fiery grip. Consult the Web sites indicated in the story and steer for clear skies.

W. Sites
Missouri

Howdy Bill,

Thanks for your piece and I agree with your advice to not overreact to wildfire news.

I'd like, however, to take exception to two parts of your article.

First, you must refer to these fires as "forest fires" about a dozen times. True, some of these fires are burning in forests, but many of the largest fires that have burned in the west this year have burned in grass and brush with nary a tree in sight. I've pointed this fact out on this site and other sites repeatedly throughout the fire season (and for many fire seasons past), but still too often the fires are simply generically called "forest fires" by the media.

Which brings me to my second point. I'm sorry, but I can't agree that the media does a great job keeping us informed on the wildfire issues. True, we get a fairly decent blow-by-blow of how many acres burned today, what the fire weather outlook is like for tomorrow and notices of evacuations. Clearly this is all useful and essential information. However, much beyond that and the media largely fails in its coverage of fire issues.

For an interesting read on this issue I'd recommend the "Reporters Guide to Wildland Fire" put together in 2005 by experienced wildland firefighters with an organization called FUSEE, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.

You can download the full report at http://www.fusee.org/content_pages/docs/Reporters_guide.pdf and I've provide the report's introduction below as I think it will be of interest.

Reporters Guide to Wildland Fire - Introduction
Every summer thousands of wildland fires, both large and small, ignite across the U.S. The largest, most severe wildfires provide reporters with all the elements needed for exciting news stories: Crisis and conflict, drama and suspense, death and destruction. Wildfire stories also carry a readymade template for framing the story, identifying the main characters, and describing the unfolding events.

However, wildfire stories often follow a standard script that sometimes verges on sensationalist hype and hysteria. This tendency is rooted in the dominant cultural attitude toward fire, and can be exacerbated by the intense commercial pressures of the news business. The net result may produce riveting stories, but this misses an opportunity to more accurately and fully inform the public with the whole story.

In addition to being inaccurate and incomplete, year after year of the same boilerplate wildfire "shtick" is getting boring. This Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire is intended to help improve the accuracy, quality, and value of press accounts of wildfire events. It is hoped that this Guide will inspire more alternative and investigative reporting on wildfire events as well as coverage of a broader array of important fire management issues beyond the typical focus on firefighting.

This Reporter's Guide includes constructive criticisms of the typical problems of wildfire reporting: Overused angles, unexamined assumptions, ecological illiteracy, inaccurate terminology, biased sources, unasked questions, and underreported issues. These critiques are then followed by suggestions for new story angles, better word choices, more challenging questions, expanded information sources, and alternative issues to cover.

Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE) trusts that some journalists will be motivated to break out of the trite story line that, to-date, has framed the vast majority of wildland fire articles. Using the tips and tools in this Reporter's Guide to Wildland Fire will help journalists produce more powerful, informative, inspiring news stories that reflect the best ideals of the journalistic profession.

Fires are making the West a terrible place to live. Coaster's need to stay there. Each bad fire year is worse than the last. Recently arrived? Save your families! Move back to the coast!

Whoa, Bill. I don't know where your thinking lies, but I'm pretty well persuaded that Montana doesn't really need more promotion as a destination for the purchasers of the outdoors experience and, in tandem with it, second homes.

And I'm not as confident as you seem to be that it's OK to encourage people into the Beartooths, where you will be feeling safe from fire.Well, the Beartooths are known for elevational relief, and I'm betting that you won't be camping out at 3500 feet. To whatever extent you climb, you'll of course leave lots of people behind you, and the same's so for anyone else who takes you up on your implicit invitation.

There's the rub, m'friend. The higher we go, the more country we leave behind, the more exposed we become to fires that get started down there among the crowds and quickly rush upslope.
You and I might know enough and be prudent enough not to start a fire, at least not one that gets away, but I sure wouldn't encourage anyone to place themselves up from crowds of people they don't know.

But I'm lately seeing some bigger stories emergent. For example, several articles in peer-reviewed journals cite evidence that the West will be getting drier, plausibly lots drier. Meanwhile, other peer-reviewed studies report evidence that the West is going to see increasing frequency and intensity of fire. To whatever extent these projections hold true, they're going to force some change on the region's conservation community.

It's sure forced change on me. Like many others, I became increasingly persuaded that fires are normal for range and forest,
that range and forest can and will recover from fire, and that we'd made a lot of mistakes by fighting fire in the past. Well, I still see mistakes in the rigor and cost of firefighting in the past, but the whole question of fire takes on new meaning in our new climate.

Sure, I'm with you when you say we should resist hysteria about fires, but I've been having to learn to resist the old cliche' about their being just part of the norm. What's coming at us is well outside the boundaries of the norms we've come to know and love. So my advice on fire is: Get used to it.

The insurance companies sure are. It won't take many more summers like 2000, 2003, and now 2007 before promoting Montana as a destination takes on shades of inviting people and their money into harm's way, and an increase in cost of insuring against fire might be the public's first inkling of the new risks.

Lance Olsen

Interesting discussion as wildfire always seems to provoke. Some observations: we are living in a fundamentally human influenced ecosystem in the West.

Cheat grass and other invasive plants have exacerbated the desert and range fires that Matthew talks baout above. Climate change's effects on extending the length of the fire season in the Northern Rockies in particular is illustrated in recent Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences (Westerling, et al. 2006) and makes the point unequivocally. So yes, I agree with Lance that we need to "get used to it" to some degree or another. However I would like to bring up a related question: Do we have any opportunity to influence our environment and these fires at all?

Climate change, by all scientific accounts, is a human caused phenomenon. Additionaly affecting the wildland fire environment are: fire suppression, land use practices, invasive weeds, building in the wildland urban interface, fragmentation due to development, and many other factors. These factors have exacerbated the problems we face as we try ot live in an increasingly not-so-adapted wildland fire ecosystem. We have problems--ecological, economic, and social ones--that result form the current wildland fire situation. Many have been identified above.

The culpability for the net effect of these actions falls squarely in our laps, even though these actions were largely carried out without much thought as to their individual or collective future impacts. I believe these facts illustrate that we DO have an opportunity to influence the environment, perhaps even the severity and occurance of wildland fire, particularly if we do so in a concerted, scientifically informed, and planned way. I think to belive otherwise is akin to throwing up our hands in futility on other environmental issues including a major driver of the current wildland fire problem: climate change. If we have had so major an impact on the ecosystems we live in largely by default, imagine the effects we could have if we moved forward with some planned clarity of purpose informed by science and sophisticated decision making and implementation capabilities?

So its a double edged and somewhat contradictory state of affairs: on the one hand, yes, we should get used to it and not sensationalize the events that are regular (not to be confused with normal) occurances in the West........on the other, CAN we do somethign about a problem that we have largely created unknowingly, and if we now know what those factors are that have created the problem, can we change those for the better?

Seems to me this is a dilemma for the tourism industry. PR can wax both ways. When one looks at a national fire incident map and the vast majority of fires are between Boise and the canadian border on the south and north, and between Bozeman and Spokane on the east and west, it doesn't take a genius to avoid that area.
I believe there is an ancient oriental maxim to the effect that when the rulers are incompetent, catastrophe will follow. Leevees breached, bridges collapsed, and wild fires raging, not too mention the boondoggle of the war. Priorities are miscued and intelligent objectives discarded.

WOW!

Mr. Bill Schneider, your recent column is at least as irrationally reactive to "things" as you think others are. Things are not only "as bad as they seem", they may be worse. NewWest is in a perfect position to be lending perspective to the authentic threats facing people all over the west.

Please do not minimize the concept of "threat" because it is quite real. My staff and I in south central Montana try to communicate sensibly with tourists and residents on a daily basis to provide balanced information about a plethora of issues ranging from fire dangers, increasingly aggressive bears, maximization of precious vacation dreams, safe use of our roads, options to revamp their travels, etc.

The THREATS posed by fires, be they "forest" or "grasslands" are absolutely real. The current Jocko/Seeley Lake fire exemplifies reality in multiple directions. Scores of my life-long friends have had to evacuate their homes; scores sit on pins and needles wondering if the next complexity of wind patterns will force them to leave. I sit hundreds of miles to the east tempted to venture west to try to retrieve some of the core of my family records, photos, heirlooms, etc. So far, reminding myself that nobody there needs me to add to the confusion, has kept me in place.

Saturday's "inferno" jeopardized people who are real--fire-fighters, residents, visitors. It jeopardized animals--wild and domestic. There was no rhyme or reason for its not proceding to destroy the town.

The town will face at least a month of trepidation. The smoke from the wildfire drifts eastward, just as the earlier fires in Oregon and Washington drifted. Potential mental and physical health issues are real.

We in Montana most certainly do need the income produced by tourism. At the same time we need to keep the reality of our conditions in the forefront.

Where I am right now, we have very minimal smoke and we have been graced with occasional rain, yet a few weeks ago we had residents calling in fearful of free-ranging campers who might set our forests and fields on fire as they lived their "dream" of a campfire in the woods. We have felt like idiots trying to explain to potential visitors on the phone why they cannot have campfires--the level of ingnorance and stubborness is astonishing.

Today, we had numerous tourists arrive with tales of fleeing the smoke. They are choosing to stand aside from causing problems to fire-fighters who don't need surplus "innocents" clogging volatile places. They want to make the most of their long-planned, expensive and treasured chances to visit the West. In face-to-face communications, they cite their duality of concern for Montana and her challenged circumstances vs their ethnocentric regrets about having their vacations "spoiled". It offers excellent opportunities to educate and encourage deep thought about how we are all impacting the ecology of this world.

NewWest--become a responsible authority for what is going on here. National TV has been doing a miserable job. Friends from town and all-over the country have been calling me, terrified with false reports of what has been occurring. My terror with the potential is real; my terror with irresponsible reporting is real. By the way--the latest "news" affirms that the reality of threats to Seeley Lake and other western places are on the verge of becoming "boring". As difficult as it has been to get authoritative information so far, now that gross fires are no longer so sensational, the threats locals will have to live with for a really long time will be forgotten as "we" go back to over-consuming and putting our heads in the sand, as usual.

Compassion for all threats and disappointments, education about fragility of western ecosystems, reflection about our mutually made mess...things are as bad as they seem. Let's do something other than minimize. "But for the grace of ___, there go I."

Finally, as you cockily retreat to the mountains, be mindful that the bears in the Beartooths are significantly stressed by the loss of much of their food supply due to drought. They have been uncharacteristically aggressive approaching campers and hikers with growls and minds set on accessing substitute food sources. Even the so-called "bear savy" need to rethink their sense of expertise. (P.S. I wasn't intimating that they were set on eating people.)

News from the New West must not impress Schneider too much.

montana's top fire
Jocko Lakes Fire Jumps Line, Moving in on Seeley Lake


By Jessica Mayrer, 8-09-07



Above: Map of the Jocko Lakes Fire before Wednesday's growth, click image to enlarge. Below: A firefighting airplane returns to reload after dropping fire retardant on the northeastern edge of the Jocko Lakes fire Tuesday. Photo by Anne Medley. For a photo gallery of images from the Jocko Lakes Fire, click here.


SEELEY LAKE—The Jocko Lakes Fire near Seeley Lake acted up again Wednesday, spreading again on the fire’s new trouble spot-- the northeast flank.

There, Dogtown, a subdivision of Seeley Lake, is threatened and crews were pulled off other sides of the fire to help combat the growth.

The fire is now estimated at 16,900 acres, 1,900 more acres than estimates from Wednesday morning. And, “it’s growing right as we speak,” incident commander Glen McNitt said Wednesday night.

As the fire spread northeast, the incident command team on the fire was without two of its “super scooper” CL-215 airplanes, which have been a big help to crews in securing fire line over the last few days.

“During that time, that was a critical time, when it crossed the line,” McNitt said.

Fire information officer Andy Sheetz said the two planes were down for mechanical repairs.

“The fire did make a big push out,” said Rob Allen, Operations Section Chief on the fire.

The fire had not yet reached Boy Scout Road, which runs along the west shore of Seeley Lake. Boy Scout Road is the trigger point for evacuating the town of Seeley Lake. If the fire hits it, “that’s the time when we would evacuate the rest of town,” fire information officer Pat Cross said Tuesday. “I’m really hoping that doesn’t happen.”

Crews successfully conducted burn-out operations last night in the Archibald Creek Area in the Northeast corner of the blaze, and also around a Missoula Electric Co-Op power substation near Placid Lake, information officer Tom Kempton said.

Also on Wednesday night, firefighters put out two spot fires, one near the west-side bypass and another, near the power substation, before they spread.

The weather outlook today calls for winds from the southwest up to 20 mph, lower humidity and warmer temperatures. Fire spotting of up to one mile, or more, is possible.

“In all likelihood, it will burn to the contingency line in spots,” McNitt said.

The fire, which ignited Friday, is threatening some 1,500 structures and 675 homes are still evacuated around Placid Lake and in Dogtown and the Double Arrow Ranch subdivision on the southeast side of the fire.

The fire is 10 percent contained, with most of the containment line between the east side of the fire and the west shore of Seeley Lake.

The southeast side of the fire is the leading edge, or what firefighters call the “head.”

“We do not normally support attacking the head of the fire, but that is exactly what we are doing here,” McNitt said. The fire on that side has stayed pretty low to the ground, giving crews the opportunity to build direct line between the blaze and the homes near the lake.

About 495 people are working the blaze. Being the nation’s top priority, the fire is the first to get available crews and equipment if needed. On Wednesday, a Type 1 incident management team from Alaska took over command. So far, about $2.5 million has been spent fighting the fire.

“You can have all the resources in the world, and Mother Nature is still more powerful,” McNitt said.

Fire officials are calling the fire a long-term event, one that might not really quiet until fall arrives. The surrounding communities are in for a long season watching and waiting for enough moisture to end the season. Containment is estimated for Sept. 15. As of now, the fire is exhibiting “extreme” behavior in “extreme” terrain and has “extreme” growth potential, according to reports.

There have been no new evacuation orders issued, but a 12-hour pre-evacuation notice was given to residents living south of the Double Arrow road to Highway 200 and from Highway 83 east to Cottonwood Creek past Cozy Corner, Cross said.

The mandatory evacuation orders are in effect south of the east-west line at mile marker 22 on Highway 83, and everything west of the west shore of Seeley Lake. Highway 83 is closed from Clearwater Junction to Condon. Closures on the west side of the fire include Gray Wolf Trail Road, South Fork Road and Jocko Lakes Road.

Even with the evacuations in place, several homeowners have not left.

“Those people are basically going to be on their own,” McNitt said. “This is not a game. This is potentially life or death.”

Fire officials confirmed Sunday that at least one home burned in the weekend’s blow up, as the fire raced from 800 acres Saturday morning to 14,200 by Sunday.

In addition to the one destroyed home, seven outbuildings and “other” structures were destroyed, and another primary home and a commercial property were damaged, Cross said.

“It’s an amazingly low number (of structures burned) considering how the fire was carrying on,” he said.

The fire erupted Saturday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes around Placid Lake and Seeley Lake, closing Highway 83 and prompting Gov. Schweitzer to issue an emergency declaration.

“It just screamed,” Ricardo “Zuni” Zuniga said. “It just ran four to five miles in about four hours.”

The Jocko Lakes Fire was reported at about 3:00 Friday afternoon. The fire first started on Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Land, but quickly spotted to the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s protection on Forest Service lands. According to reports from fire information officer Jamie Kirby, the fire spread from 10 acres to 300 in a matter of a half an hour.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

This story will be updated throughout the day. For a roundup of all of Montana’s wildfires, check in at http://www.newwest.net/fire.

Have pictures of the Jocko Lakes Fire you’d like to share with New West readers? Send them to .

Alex asks if we have opportunities for response to the predicament we're in with fires, sprawl, and atmospheric CO2 levels headed from today's 380 ppp to tomorrow's 55O ppm.

A couple things come to mind.

For the near term, we could stop state and federal promotion of sprawl into areas that will be prone to fire. Sprawl does not just happen. It is not entirely spontaneous, or driven by Smith's "invisible hand." It is promoted, which is why states, counties, and yes, chambers of commerce have some legal liability for encouraging people to locate their homes and families in harm's way.

Looking further down the road, we could meaningfully slash CO2 emissions. Even though we have already committed the climate to consequential change that will inevitably heighten risk of fire for at least some decades, and plausibly for the next few centuries, this bad situation will worsen as we keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere.

The crucial target is to avoid an additional heating of 2 degrees C.
To meet that target, some influential entities have urged reducing CO2 emissions by 60%. That is not looking like enough reduction.

Just a couple weeks back, Science reported (in its editorial space) that 11 sensitivity models have indicated that reducing CO2 by 60% misses the crucial target. Which suggest to me that we'd better be looking at the 80% reduction that David Merrill of Missoula's Globalwarmingsolution.org has urged. And I think it's worth noting that the Union of Concerned Scientists' energy expert has endorsed that approach.

To W Sites: maybe the lack of manpower is because some of the workers are also firefighters. Or they could be in the Guard and Reserve and shipped to Iraq. I read that many of these folks are also fire and police in rural areas, and the towns are suffering without them.

Gosh, Bill, what's going on here? You sure seem to attract a lot of flak, regardless of what you write. I mean, this time, you just wrote a nice, sunny, chamber of commerce, happy smiley-face nonsense thing and look what happened. I would never imagined all this kind of response about an essentially "cheer-up-it's-all-NOT-gloom-and-doom" piece. Like I've said before, I hope you get bonus bucks for drawing comments. I wonder how many you would have gotten if you wrote something taunting or controversial, like maybe that the NRAers are all heterophobic?