NEWS

Park personnel hit trail to warn hikers about fire

Karl Puckett
kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com
Firefighters march past the general store at Rising Sun on their way to work on the Reynolds Creek Fire in Glacier National Park.

The evacuation of Going-to-the-Sun Road and nearby campgrounds in Glacier National Park the first day a wildfire exploded July 21 went fairly well, said Kyle Johnson, a wilderness specialist in the park.

One reason is that dozens of visitors could see smoke from what later became known as the Reynolds Creek fire.

“So it was pretty easy to get people to move,” Johnson said.

Contacting hikers who were in the backcountry at the time took hard hiking by park personnel, and occasionally some motivating, he said.

Those hikers were spread across four good-sized drainages. Some didn’t know about the fire. Others had seen the smoke, but didn’t know the danger they might be walking into.

“We just kind of pulled a plan together and went out and got it done,” Johnson said.

Containment of the 3,200-acre fire had reached more than 60 percent as of Friday, when crews were planning to work on securing the containment line along the fire’s northeast corner.

The initial evacuation June 21, a Tuesday afternoon and evening, involved motorists on the road and the Rising Sun and St. Mary campgrounds, which were closer to the fire’s point of origin.

On the first full day of the fire, a Wednesday, two trail crew personnel were dispatched to the backcountry to look for hikers.

“We grabbed them and said, ‘This is the assignment for the day,’ and they were all over it,’” Johnson said. “Young guys with strong legs.”

Those two trail crew personnel, also firefighters, hiked from Jackson Glacier overlook to Lake McDonald Lodge, covering two mountain passes talking to everybody they encountered on the 20-mile-plus trek.

“Just warning people along that whole route this is what’s going on, and you better turn around now because you’re not going to be able to go that way,” Johnson said.

Areas that needed checking were Baring Creek, the back side of St. Mary Lake, Red Eagle drainage and Otokomi Lake.

“Otokomi was our big question mark for a while,” Johnson said.

William Clayton, who designs T-shirts, was selling Reynolds Creek fire shirts in St. Mary Thursday.

Helicopters were sent to look for two individuals who couldn’t be located initially. It turns out they were hiking out, including through areas that recently burned. They made it out Wednesday, showing up at the Rising Sun campground, which had been evacuated.

The final seven hikers were out by 1 p.m. Thursday, two days after the fire began late Tuesday afternoon.

All total, about two dozen people in the backcountry were located. About eight to 10 park personnel were involved in the effort, including rangers and employees working in trails and fire.

Johnson coordinated the effort to make contact with the hikers.

“When something happens, everyone kind of pulls together, and their primary job takes a back seat to the emergency that’s going on, whatever it is,” Johnson said.

In Glacier, overnight stays are by permit. That means park personnel know who is staying at what campground, where they’re from, their name and what trails they plan to use.

But the people still had to be located and informed of the fire and the safest route out of the park

Sometimes people go “off permit” and alter their route for a variety of reasons, and park personnel had to take that into account as well, Johnson said.

Gunsight campground, southwest of the Reynolds Creek fire, was one area that needed to be checked. About a dozen people were warned about the fire. Some of them needed a “pep talk,” Johnson said.

“Some of them weren’t very motivated to get out very fast,” Johnson said.

The hikers were either escorted out or given clear directions to safety, with park personnel “sweeping” the area and following behind them.

For others farther up the trail, it was too late in the day to begin the hike.

“People further up the trail, we just said, ‘You guys are going to have to spend the night out here,’” Johnson said. “In that first full day in that fire, there was pretty active and erratic burning going on.”

On Friday, mop-up operations and response to expected increases in fire activity near constructed fire lines also were scheduled, along with a burnout operation above Rising Sun Campground.

Green islands of unburned fuel still have the potential to be active, the Type I incident management team said. A red flag warning was in place because of expected high winds and relative humidity.