West Fork and Moose Peak fires 'It looks like our summer fire season has been shut down' Firefighters welcome rain and resources as county winds down call center
The West Fork fire isn’t out yet, but with the change in the weather, the steady arrival of resources and the diminishing threat to structures, some aspects of fire operations are winding down — two daily fire briefings are ending, for example, and the emergency operations center is no longer staffed, though a phone line is being forwarded to county offices.
Emergency Management Planner Brent Teske asked those who left items in the emergency operations center — a room off the Ponderosa Room in the city building — to claim them soon if they still wanted them.
“When I start cleaning, it’s going to be a whirlwind,” he said.
As it approached 20,000 acres in size on Monday, the West Fork fire was reported 33 percent contained and projected to reach full containment by Oct. 7. With 396 personnel assigned to fight it, the formerly oft-heard phrase “lack of resources” has disappeared from daily conversation surrounding firefighting efforts.
This week’s rains — there’s a chance for precipitation every day, said Darren Clabo, the incident command meteorologist — have effectively put an end to any intentional burning, which caused smoke plumes to be visible from downtown Libby as recently as this weekend.
“It looks like our summer fire season has been shut down,” Clabo said Monday at perhaps the final daily briefing to be held in the Ponderosa room.
Between Monday and Saturday, Clabo said the area could see upward of an inch to an inch and a half of rain. Winds were forecast to be light and out of the southwest, he said, and daytime temperatures in the 50s with near-freezing temps overnight.
Underscoring the West Fork fire’s diminished threat to structures, Colby Crawford of operations said that crews were going to start removing sprinklers from yards, including those in the vicinity of 17 Mile Road and Pipe Creek Road.
Crawford suggested that within days authorities might reconsider lifting the evacuation order in that area, the only such order remaining. He said a lot of logging equipment is still working in that area, and they are trying to arrange for a street sweeper to clear debris from roadways before they let people back in.
At other properties, crews have started to “rehabilitate” the dozer lines surrounding them, Crawford said.
Meanwhile, “all needed fuel break construction has been completed along Pipe Creek road,” according to Monday’s incident fact sheet.
Unable to proceed with intentional burn operations, “firefighters will concentrate on patrolling, holding and improving all containment lines,” the fact sheet states.
Crawford said the spot fire discovered near Gold Hill a week ago Sunday is less than 100 acres in size and will continue to be monitored.
Nate Gassmann of the Libby Ranger District, speaking at Monday morning’s briefing, said he expected discussions to be held Tuesday concerning whether to reopen any closed areas and also whether to remove the Stage II fire restrictions that have been in place for weeks.
At the Moose Peak fire to the south, which is being managed by the same team managing the West Fork fire, officials on Monday announced the first containment figure — 11 percent — since firefighting began. Sized at 12,624 acres, it had 158 personnel assigned to it Monday morning.
The fire was more active over the weekend than the West Fork fire, including a two-acre spot fire that kept crews busy until about 3 a.m. Monday.