BY MICHAEL S. TERWILLIGER
In 1988, I was assigned as the branch director of structure protection for a fire in the Lolo National Forest in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Assigned to the Clear Creek Fire on September 7, I discovered on arrival that it had been started in early June by a lightning strike in an area known as the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The fire was allowed to burn to meet resource objectives for the region and had attained the size of around 60,000 acres just before my arrival.
Two things happened to make this fire stand out that summer. First, it was already quite large when the jet stream surfaced across the western United States and winds of 40 to 60 miles per hour hit this fire as it burned in drought-ravaged stands of lodgepole pine. Second, as I learned during my fire behavior analyst class training that winter, the fire burned 177,000 acres of timber in 18 hours. The fire management officer at the time on the Lolo, Jerry Williams, told us it was a good decision that went bad. Although July is generally one of the wettest months in the Rockies, it had not rained all summer, hence the analogy "it was a good decision that went bad," which I still support in concept. The fire did not get much recognition because the same wind caused the fires in Yellowstone National Park, which took out significant acreage as well; that grabbed the media's attention. The sad thing is that this fire burned out of the Rocky Mountains and destroyed livestock and the hay that would feed them the next winter, not to mention a spike camp set up to support the fire.
If you are a current subscriber,login hereto access this content.
If you would like to become a subscriber, please visit ushere.
