West’s ‘Forgotten’ Wildfires Keep On Burning

Ron Swaney and his 20-member crew were staring down a 600-acre grass fire on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Around them, lightning brought more small fires to life. Alone in the darkness, they knew their chances of licking the flames were slim.

In this historic wildfire season, the first call for manpower and resources goes to the big fires, including the more than 300,000 acres burning to the south of here, another 350,000 elsewhere in Montana and more than 740,000 acres on fire across the border in Idaho.

Unless they pose an immediate threat to life or property, the relatively small blazes--the forgotten fires across the West--are left to whatever crews are available.

On the night of Thursday, Aug. 3, that was Swaney and his crew. But only when Swaney called the fire dispatch center did he discover just how trying the night would be. Over the radio he heard the distant ding-ding-ding of the dispatch center’s storm-tracking system--each “ding” represented a lightning strike on the reservation.

Swaney, 34, could only watch. “Eerie,” he said.

The storm that swept through northwestern Montana on that night and over the weekend resulted in at least a dozen fires on and near the reservation alone. Hundreds of fires are raging across the West, where firefighters and equipment are in short supply.

Small by comparison, with the imminent risk of damage to property and life only slight, the fires on the Flathead Indian Reservation don’t get the attention of their devastating counterparts.

“This is a year like no other,” fire information officer Dennis Dupuis said.

In 1994 just four fires broke out on the reservation. But the response was swift and powerful.

“Teams came with resources, and you knew you could catch those fires 10 to 12 days out,” Dupuis said. “Now we’re looking at 30 days plus to catch these fires.”

Swaney and his crew, along with several local volunteer fire departments, were on their own for the first three days.

“Before these fires we had our average fire year in our back pocket,” Swaney said. Those fires had all been put out, though, and on Aug. 3 the crew sat in the fire center located at the foot of the Mission Mountains, playing blackjack and waiting for the predicted storm to hit.

About 8 p.m. they got word of an illegal campfire at a campground. The crew started to see the lightning on the way there.

“First we heard lightning hit Hot Springs,” crew boss Don Carpentier said, referring to a small town on the western edge of the reservation. “Then lightning started the Little Bitterroot fire behind us, so we turned back around.”

Back at the dispatch center, Dupuis was seeing strikes hit closer to home, and was especially concerned with one that struck near the reservation’s Job Corps center.

“It would obviously be a threat to life, public safety and firefighters, and safety is the first priority,” he said. “I pretty much put Ron [Swaney] on notice that ‘if this fire comes up, you’re coming in.’ ”

That fire didn’t spark, and the crew was able to stay out all night to douse the 600-acre Little Bitterroot fire, the same fire Swaney was staring at while the lightning storm rolled overhead.

Exhausted, they went home around 4 a.m. and collapsed for a couple of hours’ sleep.

“The next morning we were all holding our breath, waiting for the smoke to clear,” Swaney said. “When it did, we knew we definitely had our hands full.”

Carpentier and Swaney flew over the reservation as soon as the smoke cleared enough to assess the storm’s damage.

A fire at Clear Creek was a real concern, Carpentier said. “It was at about five acres when we flew over it the next day, and was at about 40 [acres] by the time we got on the ground and got on it. The wind just took that fire and blew it.”

Now the fires on the reservation are burning within a 20,000-acre area.

In the first 46 hours after the Little Bitterroot and Clear Creek fires started, the crew only got about two to three hours of sleep.

The chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fred Matt, empathizes with his firefighters.

“I share their frustration,” said Matt, who began fighting fires in 1967 and worked alongside several of Swaney’s crew members during the 1994 fires.

“In 1994 we could rely on resources coming our way,” he said. “Now they’re totally frustrated because they’re trying to do it with what we have.”

Jerry Matt (no relation to Fred Matt), a firefighter for 17 years, was on his second tour on the Clear Creek fire on Aug. 25, after fighting the blaze the first week when it was at 1,500 acres.

“The fire was just too hot to get in there and fight, so we just tried to keep our lines and keep houses from burning,” he said.

A Canadian crew has come in to oversee the Clear Creek fires, now 80% contained. Swaney’s crew has been freed up--to sit and wait.

Three weeks after the lightning storm blew through, Swaney and his crew were playing blackjack again, jumping at the sounds of footsteps on the stairs and ringing phones, waiting to be the initial attack for yet another forecast thunderstorm.

“It’s hard to sit and wait for something else to happen,” he said.

Even with the resources on hand, another lightning storm would strongly dent firefighters’ efforts. Last weekend another large fire started near Red Lodge, Mont., as the Bitterroot fires in the southwestern part of the state continued to threaten homes.

“That was the hardest thing, not having the resources on hand. But if we have another Thursday like that, we’ll still be short,” Carpentier said, watching Swaney cross another day off a calendar that counts the days until Christmas or a season-ending event.

“This is like the fourth round of a championship bout that goes 18 rounds,” Dupuis said from the dispatch area over the crew’s waiting room. “We’re hoping to have three of the large fires contained in the next 15 days, but we still have others. And I tell you this not knowing what we’re getting today or in the next storm.

“In my heart, I know these fires are doing the environment a lot of good, but the risk of somebody getting hurt just keeps getting greater.”