Copper King fire over 27,000 acres

After a month, smoke still drifts into Kootenai Valley from the largest wildfire in Montana.

The Copper King Fire reached 27,788 acres with a 20 percent containment Thursday morning, according to the Lolo National Forest update morning.

The wildfire, eight miles from Thompson Falls, has been burning for a month now, originating on July 31. Since growing in 18,000 acres since the beginning of last week, the wildfire has left 45 residences under evacuation notice and 130 in pre-evacuation status since the beginning of last week.

The fire is being managed by Greg Poncin’s Type I Northern Rockies Incident Management Team had a total of 838 personnel on the fire as of yesterday. The resources include six type I crews, 10 type 2 crews, four camp crews, 11 dozers, 58 engineers, 26 water tenders and eight helicopters.

Wednesday’s fire operations were a reported success, as aerial resources conducted burnout operations along the northern perimeter of the fire. Helicopters dropped a total of 258,000 gallons of water on the fire while heavy air tankers and single engine fixed-wing planes dropped 36,500 gallons of retardant.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but officials have said that they suspect it’s human-caused.

The estimated cost of the fire as of now is $19.4 million.

Reporter Bethany Rolfson may be reached at 293-4124 or by email at reporter@thewesternnews.com.