Tuesday Brings Wind and Possibilities
Incident: Fool Creek Wildland Fire Used for Resource Benefit
Released: 8/14/2007
Choteau, Mont., Aug. 14, 2007, 8 a.m.-A red-flag warning is posted from noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday for the Fool Creek fire area. West wind gusting to 25 miles per hour with low humidity is forecast this afternoon.
On Monday, an east wind blew on the plains and a short way into the Rocky Mountain Front. While it didn't affect most of the Fool Creek fire, it did help keep fire in check in the West Fork of the Teton River. Helicopter water drops and the wind did the trick in the West Fork on Monday, fire officials said.
Tuesday, the expected winds could move the fire farther east and closer to the Massey Tract, an area of summer cabins. As the fire moves east, down the West Fork canyon, it will come into an area with old clearcuts where short young trees grow.
Under the right circumstances, firefighters may be able to safely use the clearcuts for more direct attack on the fire. They won't have the threat of falling large dead trees (snags) as they do in much of the rest of the West Fork.
Whether this strategy will work out will depend both on how the fire does today and on weather in the coming days.
Just north of the West Fork, the fire will likely also continue burning along Wright Creek toward Mt. Wright. There firefighters think a rocky ridge could allow them to take direct action on the fire in coming days.
Firefighters were told on Tuesday morning to expect the fire to burn even green plants. At the Skyland fire green aspen trees burned.
"Don't trust green," Darrell Schulte, the long-term fire analyst for the Fool Creek fire said.
Two and possibly three helicopters will work on the fire on Tuesday. The third, possibly a large Skycrane, would come from the Ahorn fire. The helicopters will try to keep the fire in the West Fork in check or at least, moving slowly.
Sprinkler systems will be run today at Wrong Creek, Gooseberry, and Sabido cabins and at the Massey Tract and the Teton Pass ski area.
Now that the wind is blowing from the west, less smoke from other fires should reach the Fool Creek area. On Monday as on Sunday, southwest winds brought in smoke from fires in western Montana and central Idaho.
