(C) Daily Montanan
This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Helena man charged in starting wildfire northwest of Helena – Daily Montanan [1]

['Keith Schubert', 'More From Author', '- June']

Date: 2022-07 

Ryan P. Barrow, a 39-year-old Helena man was cited for igniting a fire, in a burn barrel, without a permit — setting off a three-acre wildfire northwest of Helena that burned for about three-and-a-half hours.

The fire at Three Mile road northwest of Mount Helena started around 4:30 p.m. Monday evening and lasted until about 8 p.m. Two homes were evacuated and a third notification was given but they chose not to leave, according to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.

“No structures were lost in the fire, by the grace of god it came and burned right around one but it didn’t start the home on fire,” Dutton said.

About 40 people from the sheriff’s office, multiple volunteer fire departments, the Birdseye Rural Fire Department and a helicopter from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation responded to the blaze, Dutton said.

Dutton said he was surprised to see a fire start this early in the season.

“I thought we had a little bit more moisture in the ground than what we had but apparently not, so that will cause me to confer with me my rural fire partners and evaluate whether we should close open burning or not,” he said.

Philip Higuera, professor of Fire Ecology and Paleoecology at the University of Montana said he wouldn’t put too much stock into what this fire means for the rest of the season.

“I wouldn’t use this one fire to extrapolate out. We look at how dry fuels are at this point in the season, and at this point, our fuels are as wet or wetter than average, so compared to previous years we are looking good for not having extensive wildfires, with the very important caveat that this is when our weather patterns change … all this can change if we have intense heat or if our precipitation turns off,” he said.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/briefs/helena-man-charged-in-starting-wildfire-northwest-of-helena/

Published and (C) by Daily Montanan
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/