Weekend weather brings evacuations, relief

This summer’s fire season, characterized as “historic” by fire officials, was exacerbated by high, gusty winds Saturday afternoon, resulting in temporary evacuations in parts of Libby.  The winds brought rain as well, though, which prompted the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office to rescind the evacuation orders Sunday morning.

High, gusting winds prompted the Sheriff’s Office, acting in conjunction with Lincoln County emergency management and the Rocky Mountain incident management team responsible for the Goat Rock Complex, to order the evacuation of 41 residences on Lower Granite Lake Road, Granite Creek Road, Willow Road, Prospect Creek Road, Winchester Drive and Granite Lake Road. The unpredictable winds also resulted in pre-evacuation notifications for all residences and businesses west of U.S. Highway 2 from Pearl Street south to Bear Creek Road. Residences on Snowshoe Road south of Hogan Drive were also included.

The winds were neither as strong nor as long-lasting as expected, however, and the precipitation that followed allowed the Sheriff’s Office to rescind the evacuation order Sunday morning.

“After meeting with members of the Goat Rock Complex fire management team, Lincoln County Sheriff Roby Bowe has decided to rescind the evacuation notice for all residents of Lower Granite Lake Road, Granite Creek Road, Willow Road, Prospect Creek Road, Winchester Drive and Granite Lake Road,” read a Sunday morning statement from the Sheriff’s Office. “All residents who were evacuated yesterday can return home, and notifications by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office are underway. Those residents are now in a pre-evacuation status.”

Bowe said he was glad to rescind the evacuation order.

“We were really happy to be able to allow people back into their homes and get back to some semblance of normalcy,” he said.

The Goat Rock Complex is a group of seven wildland fires in the area south and west of Libby, covering territory in both Lincoln and Sanders counties. The complex includes the Klatawa fire, which was responsible for the evacuation and pre-evacuations near Libby during the past weekend, as well as fires on Berray Mountain, Poplar Point, Chippewa, Dad Peak, Vimy and Pine Ridge. The total area of the complex is estimated around 7,000 acres.

The incident management team, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and the Kootenai National Forest Supervisor’s Office held a public meeting in Libby Saturday evening. Approximately 350 area residents listened as representatives of the agencies provided updates on the fires and the actions being taken to suppress and contain them.

The team’s meteorologist, Patrick Gilchrist, said the short-term forecast was starting to appear more favorable to containment and suppression efforts. He said the lower temperatures and the precipitation should help limit the expansion of the fires during the coming week.

Carmen Thomason, the public information officer for the team, said the late weekend rainfall helped stop the spread of the fire, but it was a short-term help at best.

“I sat down and talked with our Fire Behavior Analyst and it sounds like the recent precipitation has temporarily halted spread on all the fires in the Goat Rock Complex,” she said. “Heavy fuels are still holding heat due to the low fuel moisture and canopy cover provided from standing trees preventing rain from reaching the ground in some places. As the weather warms and humidity decreases a warm, dry day could have the fuels drying out and potentially increasing fire behavior which could result in increasing spread of the fires again.”

Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Chris Savage said the forest has experienced more than 70 lightning-caused fire starts since Aug. 10, when the first storm blew through the area. More than 60 of those starts, he said, were knocked down in the initial attack by local crews.

Savage said his office is expecting a warm and dry September, which was supported by Gilchrist’s analysis of the coming weather patterns. The fire season, Savage said, isn’t nearly over.

“The long-term forecast for September is a dry month,” he said. “This is a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re in it for the long haul.”

Three primary issues have hindered firefighting efforts in the Goat Rock Complex.

The first obstacle has been a lack of resources. Incident commander Chuck Russell said his team has been requesting resources since they arrived more than a week ago, but the Goat Rock Complex has been low on the priority list because other areas have a much higher level of threat to life and property.

Operations director Ron Klatt said the weekend’s activity on the Klatawa fire changed that priority rating.

“We’re expecting 11 engines and additional resources either tonight or tomorrow,” Klatt said at the public meeting Saturday.

Russell and Klatt both said the local logging companies have contributed greatly to containment efforts by supplying equipment, or “iron,” as they called it, to help build fire line.

The second obstacle has been the terrain itself. The rugged terrain of the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness has precluded ground teams from being able to hike in and obtain intelligence about the fires and their activity.

The third obstacle Russell mentioned is the result of the other fires in the area: the smoke. The heavy smoke from fires, both local and regional, has prevented flight into the impacted areas, also limiting the amount and quality of information available to the incident management team.

Sheriff Bowe also spoke at the meeting Saturday, encouraging area residents to remain vigilant and aware of the fire danger in the area. He also encouraged residents to stay in touch with local emergency authorities and not to rely on rumors for information.

“Don’t spread the rumors,” Bowe said. “It just creates more work for the rest of us as we try to do our jobs and protect the community.”

County emergency management deputy manager Lisa Oedewaldt said the best way for residents to keep informed is to subscribe to the county’s CodeRED alert system. The reverse-911 system allows county emergency management personnel to deliver messages via phone, email and text and to keep the public informed about emergency situations. Oedewaldt said residents can sign up for notifications through the county’s website.