People lined up in front of Seeley Lake Elementary for the community information meeting as smoke from the Rice Ridge Fire billows up behind the school.
SEELEY LAKE – Tuesday morning, following the first community meeting of the Rice Ridge Fire, evacuation warnings were issued for areas north of Seeley Lake, the town and Double Arrow Ranch excluding Phase 1A west of Highway 83. While the public questioned the transparency of those in charge of the fire, the managers want to assure the public that information is not being withheld and their intent at the community meeting was to provide objective information without creating panic.
The Type 3 Incident Management Team led by Incident Commander Andrew Mandell took control of the Rice Ridge Fire when it was 60 acres. Mandell said part of the fire was full of standing, dead trees and had an incredible amount of dead, down fuel on the ground.
"We had a piece of fire that you couldn't get to safely," said Mandell. "I was unwilling to put firefighters at risk under those conditions."
Mandell and Seeley Lake District Ranger Rachel Feigley also discussed probability of success in conjunction with the risk assessment should they put equipment on it.
"The equipment and retardant will not put the fire out, it just delays it. Ultimately, we would have had to put people in that spot for a long period of time," said Mandell. "Any period of time in that location is not how we want to work or how we function."
The fire grew to more than 1,000 acres Sunday, July 30 and was pushing 2,000 acres by the community meeting Monday night.
At the meeting, the community listened to several different agency representatives and members from the team address various aspects of the fire.
Feigley felt they conveyed all the information that was critical for the community to understand, including the evacuation warning and order process, should the fire reach the identified action point at Seeley Creek. They also encouraged people to sign up for Smart911 and to be prepared.
The operations section chief conveyed the fire was three miles from Seeley Creek. This did not include the fire's growth on Monday since the information was not available from the line. This compounded with unexpected fire growth through the night.
"We didn't know that night that it was going to lead us to an [evacuation warning] decision in the morning," said Feigley. "If we did we certainly would have shared that."
Montana Department of Natural Resources Clearwater Unit Manager Kristen Baker-Dickinson said while the cooperators discussed actions following the fire reaching Seeley Creek and knew evacuation warnings/orders was something that could happen; it was not something that they thought would happen the next day.
Mandell said the east wind ahead of a cold front that came through Monday night and early Tuesday had a two percent probability of occurring this time of year.
"The fire moved in a direction that it would not normally move. It stayed active for a long time after the community meeting," said Mandell.
Tuesday morning a cooperators meeting was held including U.S. Forest Service, DNRC, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and law enforcement officers from several agencies. They realized that sometime Tuesday the fire would reach Seeley Creek.
Instead of waiting, the group decided to start the process of evacuation warnings. Based on the previous day's fire growth, it wasn't unreasonable that the fire could cross Cottonwood Lakes Road and move into Seeley Lake.
Mandell said it was an easy decision to make because it gave law enforcement the opportunity to provide the best warning with the highest probability of talking to everyone. It took six hours to complete the notices.
"In my mind it is better to be prepared and take that time in a very organized manner so that people are set [should an evacuation be ordered]," said Baker-Dickinson.
No evacuations were issued Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
"It didn't happen because we got all those aerial resources and we stopped it from happening. If we wouldn't have gotten those aerial resources this would be a very different conversation," said Mandell acknowledging that they also did not get the predicted high winds. "However, you have to plan for the worst-case scenario."
Baker-Dickinson added that even though fire managers and teams order resources, they cannot count on receiving them and then they can be taken if another fire is a higher priority. The Rice Ridge Fire currently has ordered helicopters and the orders remain unfilled because none are available.
Another concern brought to managers was the location of the fire. While generating new maps to account for the fire spread the previous day can have delays, Baker-Dickinson said smoke columns can be very deceiving. She assured the public that the fire perimeter on the map is accurate, based on the information they have received from on the ground, recon flights and infrared mapping.
"Wildland fire has a huge impact on communities," said Mandell. "All those decisions are incredibly hard decisions but the gravity and the thought process with every one of those decisions was tedious. Ultimately, you need to make some of those tough choices for life and safety."
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Currently the Rice Ridge Fire is the number one priority in the nation. Feigley said that this is still a full-suppression fire. The values at risk have always been and continue to be the town of Seeley Lake and the Highway 83 corridor.
"It's a credit to the whole system that when the fire changed and the fire started moving a different direction and the priorities switched, we got what we needed to be successful at the moment," said Mandell.
Baker-Dickinson said that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks deserves a lot of credit for fast-tracking the lake closure to allow the CL-215s, known as super scoopers, to start working on the fire.
"We know our closures affect people, but we need to give our firefighters room to work and keep the public safe,” said Feigley.
Locally, fire managers are still learning how the national trends of hotter, drier temperatures and longer fire seasons plays out and how the strategies and tactics that once were effective need to be adapted to achieve the same success.
In their last day on the fire Aug. 2, the Type 3 team focused on building an indirect line on the west and south sides of the fire that could be used if needed. The Type 2 Eastern Area Team with IC Steve Goldman, that worked the Morrell Complex Fire in 2015, has returned and assumed control of the fire Thursday morning.
The community of Seeley Lake is still under an evacuation warning. The order will most likely come in the form of a pulsating high-low siren through neighborhoods.
"We are not out of the woods yet," said Feigley. "We want [residents] to be ready."
Information is available at SLE and distributed around Seeley Lake including Cory's Valley Market, the US Post Office, Seeley Lake Fire Department and on Facebook. The Seeley Swan Pathfinder will post updates on their Facebook page as they are received.
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