Firefighters Out In Force Panhandle Throws Everything It Has At Wildfires

The crew of seven walked the 15-acre McQuade Gulch fire bit by bit Tuesday, looking for puffs of smoke rising from the scorched earth.

“They’re starting to pop up now, with the direct sunlight and a little wind,” said Brandon Kaastad, a firefighter from Sandpoint. “You have to get right on top of it.”

Jessica Erickson swung her Pulaski into the duff, then took her glove off and felt through the dirt, “cold-trailing” for hot spots.

“Ow,” she said. “I need some water over here.”

The fire was one of 99 burning in the Panhandle on Tuesday. The largest are in Bonner and Boundary counties.

No homes or structures are threatened. But fire officials began requesting teams Tuesday to help fight the blazes that could grow, threatening water quality and old-growth timber.

A 140-acre blaze near Lunch Peak and two 50-acre fires in the Lightning Creek drainage area north of Clark Fork are still roaring.

Twelve Missoula-based smoke jumpers have been fighting three fires in the Lightning Creek area, said David Cobb, with the U.S. Forest Service in Sandpoint.

Another 200-acre blaze is burning 10 miles east of Eastport, Idaho. Fire crews have been unable to attack it because of a national back order for fire crews.

Firefighter Tim Sampson kept a truck pumping water from a large canvas bucket, called a blivet, that holds 72 gallons of water. Sampson, of Sandpoint, just returned from a fire south of Miles City, Mont. This was his first day back, and he was sent to the McQuade Gulch fire.

“Our main objective is to get all the hot spots out before we get the forecasted wind,” Sampson said.

Fire officials in the district worried that wind gusts could spread the 25 fires they’ve already spotted since Thursday’s lightning storm.

Luckily, the predictions didn’t pan out Tuesday.

Of the approximately 280 acres burning in Bonner and Boundary counties, 260 acres were unmanned as of Tuesday morning. District officials hope to eventually send fire crews and a helicopter to fight the 30-acre Lightning Mountain fire because of the potential for it to cause landslides and burn scarce old growth timber stands.

But those crews and equipment are subject to a waiting list. Resources are spread thin as federal and state agencies battle more than 4.8 million burning acres in the West.

The McQuade Gulch fire and several fires in the Monarch Mountains across the Clark Fork River continue to be high priorities because of their proximity to populated areas.

Bobby and Jim Boutin live below the McQuade Gulch fire and watched it burn from their home Sunday.

“We thought we was gonna have to move,” Bobby Boutin said. “I was awake all night. We still have the hose out.”

The Boutins got a little shower from the helicopter hauling water overhead from the Clark Fork River up the mountainside, but they didn’t mind.

“He was working. He wasn’t slowing up,” Boutin said. “I thought, `Thank God for the chopper.’ It got real scary, it really did.”

Bonner County Search and Rescue volunteers are holding regular meetings to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

District Ranger Richard Kramer said crews won’t be pulled off the McQuade Gulch fire or other fires near Clark Fork until they’re out.

Resources to fight other fires will have to come from other areas.

“We’re starting to see more resources popping up,” Kramer said.

A team of seven Australian fire management experts were expected to join the district’s firefighting team this week. Kramer also was counting on getting two more helicopters Tuesday to haul water and help size up the unmanned fires.

Meanwhile, the Forest Service still is trying to get the word out that the Lunch Peak area is closed to all users because of fire danger. Trestle Creek Road is closed from the Lunch Peak turn-off to the Rattle Creek junction.

Campfires also are banned on all public lands, except in developed campgrounds, and smoking is not allowed except in vehicles and buildings.

Fires continue to burn in other Panhandle areas:

Two relatively small fires are burning near the town of Avery in the St. Joe National Forest. They are less than 10 acres and neither is threatening the tiny logging town south of the Silver Valley, said Sandy Groth with the Forest Service in Coeur d’Alene.

Firefighters continued to battle a 20-acre blaze, called the Skookum Fire, about 15 miles east of Coeur d’Alene.

In the St. Maries and St. Joe region, air tankers are dropping fire retardant on a five-acre fire. Local fire crews are fighting an additional 16 small fires in the area.

This sidebar appeared with the story: MORE INFORMATION Panhandle fires

For more information on wildfires in the Panhandle, go to the Idaho Panhandle National Forest’s Web site at http://www.fs.fed.us/inpf or the National Interagency Fire Center’s Web site at http://www.nifc.gov.

To report fires, call 1-800-CDA-FIRE.