No major fires on Kootenai - so far
The fire season seems pretty mild in the Kootenai National Forest this year, though officials say that’s only because the past decade has seen above-average wildfire activity.
“For the past 10 years, the west has been hit pretty hard,” said Charlie Webster, forest fire management officer for KNF. “… It’s been a very average year as far as fires in the Kootenai.”
The forest’s 2.2 million acres saw 149 fires this season as of Tuesday, which burned only 149 acres. Lightning caused at least four more that were discovered Wednesday and expected to burn only fractions of an acre. The number of fires this year is just seven short of reaching the 20-year average, and the season is not over yet.
The 85-acre Caribou Fire, the largest this season, occurred the last week of May in the Yaak. It burned unnoticed, Webster said, because it was so early in the season that the agency wasn’t yet on the lookout for wildfires.
The entire Region 1, which encompasses national forests in Montana, northern Idaho, North Dakota, and northwestern South Dakota, has overall had below average fire activity, according to Webster.
The 2.3 million-acre Flathead National Forest, for example, had 41 fire starts and lost only 12 acres as of Tuesday.
KNF has had the driest conditions of the area, Webster said, with a high fire alert lasting the majority of the summer.
“We have a lot of potential still for wildfire growth,” he said. “The rain we received the first week in August really delayed the worst of the fire season – but didn’t cancel it.”
Webster attributes the low number of acres lost in the KNF to a quick initial attack, which isn’t always possible when resources are overwhelmed.
“We’ve had a lot of resources available locally and regionally,” Webster said. “In many fire seasons that is not the case.”
Other areas haven’t been so lucky. Since April, British Columbia has been contending with wildfires that have so far burned up about five times its forest firefighting budget, according to Canadian news reports. Just the southeast tip of the province, which borders Lincoln County, has lost nearly 9,000 acres, with eight active fires in the area as of Wednesday morning.
“We started the season about the same (as British Columbia), but we had some pretty regular and widespread moisture,” Webster said. “They’ve had a drier summer than we have, but we’re getting to a point now … Our potential keeps rising.”
This time of year usually sees a rise in human-caused fires, Webster said, with firewood gatherers, huckleberry pickers and hunters scouring the forests.