Parmenter pricetag roughly $1 million

The first six hours of the Parmenter fire just outside Libby on July 25 carried a pricetag between $300,000 and $350,000, Kootenai National Forest’s Dan Rose estimated.

In all, the 130-acre blaze on Plum Creek Timber Co., land costs approximately $1 million.

“It’s a lot of money but you also take into consideration the values at risk,” said Rose, acting fire management officer. “From a cost-benefit standpoint, it’s a good deal. Over a third of that was used in the initial attack portion – the heavy aircraft coming in, the retardant planes, the heavy helicopter using the river and bucket drops.”

Additional air support the following day added another big chunk of change to the bill. Along with two other fires in the region, costs are estimated at around $10 million – a whopping $8 million alone for the Cascade fire near Red Lodge.

Below-average rainfall amounts are partially to blame for the difficult conditions. As such, the Parmenter fire moved fast and created a situation that necessitated an aggressive response.

“It’s been a long while since we’ve had one that close to town that moved like that,” Rose said. “We’re ahead of schedule in terms of how dry we are if you compare us to a normal year. Š We were at about 30 percent of our normal moisture in Libby for the month of July.”

Although no official cause has been finalized, a preliminary investigation revealed that an abandoned campfire – which was also the case in the Cascade and Lindbergh Lake fires – started the blaze.

Typically, 60 percent of fires in the Kootenai are started by lightning with the other 40 percent human-caused – and that includes a wide variety of scenarios like campfires, downed power lines and escaped pile burning. But this summer, those numbers are reversed with 60 percent of fires human-caused.

“The interesting thing right now that’s more than a little troublesome is that the last 15 fires we’ve had between the Kootenai National Forest and the Montana DNRC (Department of Natural Resources and Conservation) have all been human-caused,” Rose said. “And at least 11 of them were abandoned campfires.”

So, why the odd statistics? Rose believes a lot of it revolves around the lack of precipitation. But not just because of those below-average rainfall totals.

“In the valley bottom, we all have short memories,” Rose said. “People tend to compare this year to last year, which last year broke pretty much all of our weather records in Libby for number of days over 100 degrees. Š Then you go to this year which is probably more normal in terms of high temperatures but we haven’t had any rain.”

With the frame of reference, forest users may not be watching their campfires as closely.

“The vegetation still looks green but it doesn’t have any moisture,” Rose said. “I think people get lulled into complacency sometimes.”

At last word, fire danger on the Kootenai National Forest remained “very high.”