The Seepay fire, burning on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Land approximately 20 miles west of Dixon, Montana started from a lightning strike on July 17th and has grown to 1,060 acres as of Thursday, August 21st. Fire managers with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Diane Hutton’s Wildland Fire Management Team took a look at the short-range and long-range weather forecast and made the decision to demobilize most of the equipment and firefighters from the Seepay Fire. With rainfall forecasted to fall over the next seven days it is unlikely the fire will show any active behavior. Long-Term Fire Analyst, Mary Taber, stated that this rain will not only cause a fire season pause but when combined with last weekend’s rains it may be a season ending event for western Montana. A small Type 3 organization will take over management of the fire from Hutton’s Team on Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. The majority of activity today will be getting resources checked out of fire camp and safely on their way home. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are removing the Stage 1 Fire Restrictions as of 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, August 23. Closures: The following roads will remain closed: Seepay Creek Road from Hwy 200 up is closed. Revais, Magpie, and Vanderberg creek roads are closed from the top over into Seepay. The public can still drive up to top of Revais, Magpie, and Vanderberg. Roads at the top are closed and barricaded. Fire managers realize this may impact local residents huckleberry harvesting but fortunately there is such a bumper crop this year that other areas outside the fire closure are available across the tribal lands. Photo: Risa Lange-Navarro does double duty as Fire Behavior Analyst and Meterologist. Credit: Casey Teske inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4077/
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 14:46:18 +0000
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