Articles Tagged With: Montana
Update: 3:45 p.m. Firefighters on the Black Cat Fire northeast toward Evaro, are preparing for a "critical weather day" Sunday with predicted winds of up to 30 miles per hour.
A red-flag warning is in effect on the fire today into the afternoon, cautioning against winds from the southwest. But, a cold front should move into Western Montana later in the evening, bringing with it some rain but also shifting winds from the northwest. The fire made a run toward Evaro Saturday night, fueled by gusty winds, and a mandatory evacuation was issued for all property accessed off of Highway 93 on both sides of the highway from mile post 5.5 (previous evacuation area) to mile post 10 (Joe's Smoke Ring). Some roads included in the area are Mercer Road, Evaro Road, and Beargrass Mountain Road and all property accessed from these roads.
UPDATE: Law enforcement officials have issued a preparedness request to residents between mile markers 10 and 12 on Highway 93. The area affected by this request includes both sides of Highway 93 between mile marker 10 and 12, any roads off of Highway 93 in this area and all residences accessed by those roads. Law enforcement teams will be contacting residents and asking them to move any large items (boats, trailers, etc) in case an evacuation is ordered. Livestock should also be moved to an alternate location outside of this area. Residents need to be prepared to evacuate with one hour's notice and should have any personal items gathered and ready to go.
The fire grew to 7,900 acres Saturday and crews now have it 10 percent contained, with most of the containment on the fire's south flank, where the fire burned into homes Thursday, destroying three vacant mobile homes, one vacant house, and several outbuildings.
Updated Sunday at 8:25 MDT Montana fires acted up again Sunday after a relatively quiet weekend. While some evacuations had been lifted on the Jocko Lakes fire near Seeley and the Chippy Creek near Thompson Falls, by Sunday evening, evacuation orders had been issued in some areas on the Jocko Lakes fire and the now 12,000-acre Columbine fire in Yellowstone National Park had forced the closure of the eastern entrance to the park.
Red flag conditions were working their way through Montana and Idaho again Sunday afternoon and evening, bringing high winds and low humidity.
The Columbine fire, which started Thursday by a lightning strike, had grown 9,000 acres from Sunday afternoon's estimate to 12,000 acres. Park rangers closed the road at the East Entrance station and the Pelican Creek barricade near Fishing Bridge at about 4:15 Sunday afternoon and flames were visible from the road, according to reports.
Several new starts of concern Sunday were the Wicked Creek Fire, 27 miles south of Livingston, and the Wolf Creek Fire southeast of Miles City in Eastern Montana. The Wicked Creek fire was burning 12 miles up the Mill Creek basin on the east side of Paradise Valley, and about 25 structures have been evactuated. It's currently at more than 500 acres, up from 125 on Friday, and firefighters are expecting "another big push today," a Gallatin National Forest spokesperson said Sunday. A type III crew with one chopper and one air tanker are working the blaze. It's the first big fire of the season on a forest that was ravanaged last year, and growth potential is considered moderate to high.
The Wolf Creek fire waqs at 8,500 acres Sunday morning, buring in timber and grass, and was 25% contained.
Click "more" to read our full Montana fire update.
As crews get a handle on the Big Creek Fire near Emigrant in the Paradise Valley, fire officials have confimed at least three more buildings burned in the fire's weekend blowup.
Earlier reports showed just six buildings -- three of them homes -- burned in the fire, but new aerial reports show at least three more, said fire information officer Marilyn Krause. There's no word yet on what kind of buildings the other three were.
With the help of cooler temperatures Monday and Tuesday, the fire is holding at 12,000 acres and crews have line around 20 percent of the fire. That 20 percent is primarily from secure lines holding well on the south and southeastern "horseshoe" between the 50 or so threatened homes and the fire.
Each time I hear LifeFlight hovering over Missoula’s St. Patrick Hospital as it heads toward what I image to be some heart-wrenching medical emergency, I cringe. It’s been two years since Gunnar’s accident and the sound still rattles me.
When Gunnar fell 70 feet in the Bitterroot’s Kootenai Canyon, he landed on his heels just inches away from a pile of sharp rocks. Within a half hour — thanks to another climber’s cell phone — a nearby field was transformed into a make-shift landing pad.
After 40 agonizing minutes on Highway 93, I arrived at the hospital just as Gunnar was heading into surgery. And despite shuddering screams lurching from his broken body, the doctor said he was going to be OK. LifeFlight, he added, had made all the difference.
So when I recently heard that Missoula would soon have two air ambulances, I thought: Great. The more the better. And according to Dale Dallman, manager of emergency services at Missoula’s Community Medical Center, whose CareFlight will begin operations on Oct.3, that’s precisely how Missoulians should view the situation.
Others, like LifeFlight Chief Nurse Larry Peterman, are wary.
Cool, relatively wet weather Monday held down the Rockin' Fire burning near Lake Como in the Bitterroot National Forest, but crews were expecting some action Tuesday as temperatures increase and humidity drops.
The fire was still mapped at 3,500 acres Tuesday with officials waiting for a new count. It is not threatening any structures.
The Helena Hot Shots are planning to work Tuesday on securing lines along the Rock Creek Trail west of the lake to keep the fire from jumping into the Rock Creek drainage south of the fire. Meanwhile, helicopters are getting in to do water drops on the east flank of the fires.
A Type II Incident Command team is now in place. In a release Tuesday morning, commander Stan Benes said, “Our strategy on this fire is to confine and contain. We want to be able to use our resources where it is safe and feasible to contain the fire.�
So far, there are about 50 people on the fire and two helicopters on hand.
Anybody else feel that? I thought for sure my bedroom was moving. I checked under the bed for random animals that may have scurried into shake my house. Then, my Mom called, "Did you just feel that?" My mom is in Great Falls.
Yep. An earthquake. Word is it was felt here in Missoula, in Helena and apparently really shook Great Falls. It woke my Grandma Virgina up anyway. And let me tell you, that's a chore.
Richard A. "Dick" Dasen, the one-time Flathead Valley business leader who was convicted last month on felony charges of sexual abuse, prostitution and promotion of prostitution, will remain in the Flathead County Jail, at least until his sentencing July 18.
Dasen's attorney, George Best, filed a motion to have Dasen released pending sentencing, citing among other reasons his client's need for daily exercise due to heart problems. Prosecutors have repeatedly said that Dasen is a flight risk and a threat to the community and should remain incarcerated, and on Wednesday, following a procession of witnesses called by Best and the prosecution, Judge Stewart Stadler agreed with them.
Montana educators gathered this week to begin work on a plan to bring a Native American perspective to the state's school district.
The Missoulian reports that the first item on the agenda of the state's premier Indian Education for All Institute was to create a list of basic concepts every Montana educator should know about the Native American culture.
The University of Montana Graduate School is offering a class on Indian education that is based on the basic concepts.
The three-day institute is an extension of the Essential Understandings Seminar held last summer on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
Organizers of the Institute said they hoped eventually to have lesson plans available for educators on the state's Office of Public Instruction website.
Kalispell businessman Richard A. Dasen was found guilty Friday of one misdemeanor and five felony charges, including promotion of prostitution and sexual abuse of children, and was led off in handcuffs pending sentencing. He was acquitted of seven other charges, including two of the most serious - sexual intercourse without consent and aggravated promotion of prostitution. Dasen was accused of luring numerous women and girls, many of them methamphetamine addicts, into sex-for-money transactions with payments totalling more than a million dollars over many years.
The verdict virtually assures that Dasen will serve significant time in prison, though Judge Stewart Stadler will have considerable discretion in sentencing, which is set for July: the sexual abuse count can carry a penalty of up to 100 years but has no mandatory minimum. At the same time, the acquittals indicate that the jury agreed with the defense that some of the witnesses were not credible, and in fact were preying upon a man portrayed as generous to an extreme fault.
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| Richard A. Dasen (right) with his attorney, George Best at an earlier court hearing. | |
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The Kalispell courtroom was crowded Thursday, tense in anticipation of the final day of the Dick Dasen trial. Connie Guzman, whose daughter, now dead in a car crash, was a "Dasen girl", sat in the back. She’d been subpoenaed as a witness and thus barred from the courtroom until now. An entire front row was reserved for the members of a high school class. The television news people who have been here everyday for the past three weeks stood in the corner that has become their home. There was fearsome energy, tamped by a long wait outside the locked doors of the courtroom, a wait where people mingled in a divided room, with Dick Dasen and his family and friends mostly taking the side by the elevators and everyone else revolving around but not entering that space.
