The Crown Mountain Fire is one of 21 fires still burning as of Oct. The South Moccasin Fire has been fully contained. Bozeman recorded a five-day streak of air quality rated as unhealthy for sensitive groups, and Helena recorded a four-day stretch.Īfter a couple of key precipitation events calmed things down in late August, a late-season run of fires in the central part of the state including the 12,800-acre South Moccasin Fire near Lewistown and the Crown Mountain Fire west of Augusta served as a reminder that the vast majority of the state is still deep in drought. The last week of July and first week of August were particularly brutal for smoke across much of the state. A monitoring station in Bozeman recorded only four good air quality days in July, all in the first week of the month. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow program, a monitoring station in Billings recorded only one day in all of July when air quality wasn’t categorized as at least moderately poor. Even Montanans who didn’t see a single flame found themselves tangling with smoky and occasionally unhealthy air caused by fires near and far for much of July, August and September.Īccording to airborne particulate data collected by the U.S. The total number of structures destroyed across the state, including outbuildings, was 113.Īside from physical destruction, the effects of wildfire season were felt broadly this summer. A quarter of the 54 primary residences that burned across the state this year were casualties of the Boulder 2700 Fire. Īround the same time land managers in eastern Montana were trying to tame coal seam fires, the Boulder 2700 Fire on Flathead Lake kept firefighters busy with intense wind and high temperatures that resisted suppression efforts. The Richard Spring Fire was the state’s largest wildfire this season, topping 170,000 acres. A week and a half later, the Richard Spring and Lame Deer fires started between Colstrip and Lame Deer. During a particularly hot and windy period July 28-29, the PF Fire made a 16-mile run and went on to burn 66,134 acres of grass, sagebrush and timber east of Hardin. Big fires burning along coal seams wreaked havoc on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations, prompting evacuations and resulting in the loss of 12 secondary structures. In late July and early August the season ramped up even more, with the total numbers of acres burned across the state nearly doubling in the span of a week.
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