Breaks Fire

[EasternMTHunter]

For anyone who hunts in the Breaks there is a fire 30% contained as of yesterday burning on BLM and the CMR from Skyline drive to Road 837. It is burning mainly in the timber.

 

[mtmiller]

From all the radio traffic I am hearing in my office, most of the crews are still trying to get out of the area on muddy roads.
http://raws.wrh.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/roman/raws_ca_monitor.cgi?state=NRCC&rawsflag=2

 

[EasternMTHunter]

That's a good website. I haven't seen that one before. This is the one I usually use:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/gmap.php?map=ggw

 

[shoots-straight]

Those are both good sites. This is the one I usually use:

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=48.45742035&lon=-107.34131622&zoom=10&pin=Saco, MT

 

[golfer]

what hunting area or areas of the breaks is this in?

 

[Rat Fink]

I believe it is all in 410.

 

[mtmiller]

Yep, HD 410

 

[twodot]

I can not even see any sign of smoke this evening. Hoping it rained it out last night.

 

[EasternMTHunter]

Here's the most recent update:

Fire Information Report for Raven
Wildland Fire Incident
Report Date: 24-AUG-10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burnt Area: 28,415 Acres (184% increase from yesterday)
Location: Petroleum County, MT (36 miles North of Winnett, MT)
Cause: Lightning
Incident Team Type: IMT Type 3
Team Leader: Underwood
Containment Status: 45% contained)
Expected Containment: 02-SEP-10
Fuels: Medium 100000.00 148OUTB

I found this web site to be very helpful:

http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/index.php#

 

[montanadogs]

Anyone know if it has a chance of jumping the river?

 

[twodot]

Eastern MT Hunter, That report is very confusing. Where it says "184% increase from yesterday" do they mean the fire has increased by that much? That sure doesn't line up with their satalite image from the past couple of days. By the sat. views it's been basicly out since Monday morning.
On Sunday the whole UL bend was full of smoke, as were much of the musselshell bottoms. Yesterday and today, you can;t see a trace of smoke any where in the sky. Are they saying this fire is getting bigger, or are they saying that of the small bit left burning, it is 45% contained?
Lots of potential info on that site if a guy can sort it out. Also interesting that there is no satalite image available for today. What's up with that?
Sure looks like it is basicly out from here.

Here's what it looked like a couple hours after it started. Now, there's nothing but blue sky.

 

[EasternMTHunter]

I thought the same thing about the increase. I know last night on the news they said it involved 28,000 acres so I am not certain as to how often they update the site. It also looked like they got around 0.25" of rain yesterday (at least around the chain buttes). They also changed the contaiment date to Sept 2 which may put some opening weekend plans in a bind if they decide to put out some restrictions. I'm glad to hear its looking better. After the photo last night and the one in the gazette this morning the fire looked to be burning down into the bottoms, it should like all that really tall grass. I'd like to think if they could get lines on the other sides and keep it from jumping the river it would burn part of itself out. one of the docs here at work said that google maps had better up to date images of the area with smoke. I haven't checked it out yet though.

 

[Oak]

Only a guess, but I imagine the "increase" is due to better mapping of what had already burned. Pretty common for estimated acreage to change after most of the burning is done and they can get a better look.

 

[Dinkshooter]

And they keep the fire classified "uncontained" so everyone can keep pulling hazard pay.

 

[twodot]

I know nothing official, just what I can see. These photos are from Friday and today, Tuesday, 6pm. They are from the excact same spot. In all fairness, there is a bit of smoke visible this evening, you just gotta look real hard for it. I just hope that it is as close to over as it looks. I also believe that Dinkshooter could be very close to right. I also am glad that they are at least fighting it rather than letting it burn till snow comes.

 

[BRI]

The reason for the increase is they combined the Rat Patch fire with the Raven fire and, I believe are managing them as one "incident".

 

[twodot]

that sounds reasonable.

 

[EasternMTHunter]

We went up to the fire area to have a look around. The fire was mainly from Skyline drive east. The worst part of the fire was from 314 east to 316 and after 316 the intensity was less and more trees and treee tops were spared and it looked more like a grass fire. Shortly after 837 the fire stopped. I posted 91 pictures on Facebook and as long as you're friends with BigFin on Facebook you should be able to see them. If not let me know. I tired to download pics here and had some trouble with some of them. Here are a few I got downloaded.

[/IMG]

 

[Big Fin]

Thanks Doug. I will be there in a month, so it will be interesting to see how it affects the elk patterns. Those are some cool pics you put on FB.