STEVENSVILLE — Rain is bringing much-needed relief to the crews battling the Sharrott Creek Fire burning near Stevensville.
“We're right-sizing the organization. We still have just shy of 400 people on the fire. So we still have a combination of hand crews, engines and heavy equipment” noted Northern Rockies Team 5 incident commander trainee Brett Pargman.
“Currently with the rain, we did pull everybody off the fire so that we're not getting folks exposed to slippery steep slopes and rocks that come down as the moisture loosens up the fire lines," Pargman said on Thursday.
A low pressure system is moving into almost all of Western Montana over the next couple of days, bringing up to 1½ inches of rain.
The moisture is bringing some changes to the fire operations, with burn areas presenting different challenges to crews trying to contain the fire — mainly the risk of erosion.
“We are moving into, what is the fire repair time of the fire and fire repair is we go in with the equipment and the hand crews and we repair the suppression lines that we put in," Pargman told MTN. "So those containment lines where we put dozer dine or excavator line or hand line, we go in, we put water bars in so that when we do get precipitation or we get snow that runs off properly and doesn't cause erosion."
While the rain may help, it’s going to take a lot more to fully put it out with fire officials noting it will most likely take snowfall to fully extinguish everything.
The Sharrott Creek Fire has burned 3,204 acres and is 36% contained since being sparked by lightning on Aug. 23, 2024.
