Untold Stories of the Jocko Lakes Fire

Part 2 of 4 - 10 Years Remembered

SEELEY LAKE – After burning more than 13,000 acres in two days and forcing evacuations around Seeley Lake, the Jocko Lakes Fire rose to the top priority fire in the nation. The 2007 fire held that spot for nearly two weeks.

Glen McNitt's Type 2 Incident Management Team was in place for just four days before Lynn Wilcox's Type 1 Team from Alaska replaced them. A Type 1 Team provides increased capacity to handle complex fires, which the Jocko Lakes Fire quickly proved to be.

"I give Glen's team a lot of credit," said Seeley Lake District Ranger Tim Love. "Right from the very beginning they had a really tough assignment but they really rose to the occasion."

The wind shifted to the east for the next few days, giving firefighters the opportunity to work along Boy Scout Road and Westside Bypass creating a shaded fuel break as a contingency line. Because of the top priority status, ordering and receiving aerial resources including CL-215 "super scoopers" and Type 1 helicopters gave the community some breathing room.

"We did everything we could and if the wind had blown that next day, it would have come right off that ridge, right through town and up the other side. We couldn't have stopped it and the houses would have become the fuel," said Steve Wallace, DNRC Clearwater Unit Supervisor and line officer during the Jocko Lakes Fire. The main fire camp was just north of Harper's Lake. There were also spike camps established for the divisions farther out from the main camp. At its peak, 1,105 firefighters camped in the area.

Seeley Lake resident Boyd Gossard worked as a safety officer for the southern division around Placid Lake.

Gossard remembers one afternoon the fire started burning down hill and picking up towards Elk Meadows where a crew from New York was working. Prior to their arrival, Gossard had flagged a secondary route out of the area in case the main roads were cut off by the fire.

"That crew was able to go out the flagged route on their second night," said Gossard. "But the big thing that was important to that crew was they saw a herd of elk on their way out."

On another occasion, Gossard said there was an area of heavy old-growth timber next to an old clear-cut area. There was a skidder on standby in the area and Gossard saw the opportunity to create a safety zone. A safety zone is an area where fire personnel can comfortably watch a fire go by. It must have a radius of two tree lengths for the tallest trees in the area.

"There was only one way out and we knew there was a good chance the fire was going to come through there. I remember telling [the operator], why don't you just humor me and make it bigger," said Gossard. "So he went back in there and probably ended up with 40 acres."

Not two days later, a hotshot crew and members of the Alaska overhead team, whose access was cut off, spent nearly eight hours in the safety zone. "The guys weren't in a situation that was real life threatening but I thought it was interesting that they kept it really quiet," said Gossard.

Due to work done by the overhead and all the personnel on the line, the entire fire resulted in no casualties or major injuries.

One home was destroyed during the Jocko Lakes Fire. It was a modular home on Cahoon Ranch Road near Placid Lake. The home was sitting in an open field without a tree around it. An ember landed on the deck and ignited the entire structure. Maradeo said it was lost before they even knew it was there.

There were several outbuildings that were also lost. One shed that burned by Hidden Lake was holding all of a family's belongings. The house the family was moving into was saved.

* * *

Haufler and his wife Carolyn Mehl were told to evacuate their home in Eagle Point Subdivision west of Seeley Lake at 1 p.m. Aug. 4. Mehl called Paws Up Ranch to see if they could board their three horses. Not only did the Paws Up Ranch Horse Barn Manager Dale Voightlander tell them to bring their animals to the ranch in Greenough, he told them to spread the word to the rest of the community.

"They had all kinds of animals [horses, goats, cattle, dogs, cats, chickens] that they took care of down there, would feed them and had several of them for two weeks," said Haufler. "They were just great."

Haufler's family evacuated to a friend's place on the Double Arrow Ranch. At 11 p.m., Aug. 4, they were told to leave again. They spent the rest of the evacuation on the banks of the Blackfoot River with a friend.

According to Missoula County Sheriff's Office Deputy Robert Parcell, no official evacuation orders were given for Double Arrow Ranch. Seeley Lake Fire Chief Frank Maradeo said that they had volunteers who lived on the Ranch paired with law enforcement officers notifying residents of the situation.

"We were finding spots a quarter mile and sometimes a half mile ahead of [the main fire]," said Seeley Lake Fire Chief Frank Maradeo. "All it would have had to do was have a couple embers jump the highway and that would have been the end of that."

Love said half of the ranger district employees were also affected by the evacuations.

"It's all hands on deck but they needed to deal with their families, pets or their livestock and all that too," said Love. "You need to take care of your employees and make sure they are safe."

The Montana National Guard was brought in and the Highway 83 corridor was closed for nearly two weeks.

* * *

"I have to give McNitt's Team all the credit in the world because they went right after the head of [the] fire. Normally you don't attack the head of a fire like that, especially when you don't know what the wind is going to do," said Wallace. "Most of the fire we fought after that was fire we lit."

Wilcox's team lit several burn outs, also known as a backfire or back burn, that had been heated points of contention to their effectiveness. A burn out operation is a strategy where a fire is lit to consume unburned fuel between an established control line and the fire's edge.

Haufler returned to his home Sunday, Aug. 12, 2007. The day before, the Alaska team did a burn out operation with predicted high winds and low relative humidity for Sunday.

"We saw a whole lot of smoke close by," said Haufler. "No one is quite sure but probably that burn out had sent some sparks right over on Eagle Point on Seasons Edge and reignited things there. On that day it blew up again and they got everyone out for a week."

The Alaska Team did burn outs during the day and they spent all night catching it. The next day they would light another.

"In hindsight, a Type 2 Team from the Rockies could have been almost as effective as a Type 1 Team from Alaska. The problem we ran into with the Alaska Team is they struggled with the fuel type [80 foot tall lodgepole versus 20 foot tall black spruce from Alaska] and with their tactics [doing burn outs versus direct attack]," said Wallace. "My direction to them was put this fire out. They are used to fighting fire indirectly so they just kept building a bigger box."

* * *

In addition to the 1,105 firefighters assigned to the Jocko Lakes Fire, the Seeley Lake Fire Department received mutual aid from surrounding departments including Missoula City, Missoula Rural, Frenchtown, Corvallis, Florence, Hamilton, Condon and Greenough/Potomac. Volunteer membership exploded. Maradeo teamed past and retired members with current crew members.

The fire station accommodated all the volunteer firefighters, since many had been evacuated, and the law enforcement assigned to the fire. The department even received their own dispatcher from Missoula for 24-hour coverage at no charge thanks to one of the lead dispatchers Debbie Ogden.

Even with parts of Seeley Lake evacuated, there were more emergency calls in August than average. Many were related to the fire and firefighter injuries but there was also a school bus fire and a wildland fire on the top of high school hill after a branch fell into a power line.

"One thing nice about having a Type 1 team is they monitor the radio. The Operations Chief calls me on the radio, 'Do you need any help? I can get you a helicopter, I can get you engines," said Maradeo, speaking about when the wildland fire call went out. "It was nice but we were in the middle of a residential area. We had it handled."

The outside resources determined which homes were defendable and which were not using a structure triage checklist. If the driveway was too narrow or steep to back into, had branches overhanging the driveway or down, dead fuel lining the driveway it was not defensible. It was up to the triage incident commander to determine if the rest of the house passed as determined by the other criteria. Maradeo used the outside resources for triage so the department was not accused of playing favorites.

The Seeley Lake Fire Department kept track of all their hours and the state reimbursed them. There was about $5,000 in incidentals that fire wouldn't pay for so they were told Federal Emergency Management Agency would pay. Carol Wetzsteone, district administrator, called and reminded FEMA about their debt to the department until they finally showed up and hand-delivered the check.

"[Carol] was amazing," said Maradeo. "You would think that $5,000 of ours was her own personal money."

* * *

Out of the 36,388 acres that burned on the Jocko Lakes Fire, only 3,524 acres burned on the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribal land. CSKT Fire Management Officer Tony Harwood said they did very little suppression efforts in their primitive and wilderness areas.

A week or two into the fire, a contingency line was built on the western boundary between the tribal lands and US Forest Service lands to keep the fire from wrapping back around along tribal land. While all the timber was harvested, the line was never needed for suppression operations.

Harwood remained as a cooperator with the fire along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribal, cultural resources are rich in the area and they had a vested interest for tribal, cultural artifacts that may have been encountered by the firefighters.

All agencies agreed that the unified command with the CSKT, DNRC, Seeley Lake Rural Fire Department and USFS worked well.

"Pre-fire season relationships with your protection agencies and people are so important," said Love. "When you get into an incident then everyone is working together well."

All of the agencies agreed that another fire like the Jocko Lakes Fire could happen again. It is just a matter of having the weather, topography and fuels line up. The fire scar of the Jocko Lakes Fire makes for temporary fuel break to the west, but the vegetation continues to grow.

Back Burn Gone Wrong

by Andi Bourne

Pathfinder

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007 Ovando resident Larry Dillree was working as a bulldozer operator on the Jocko Lakes Fire seven miles west of Placid Lake. He was working with two other caterpillars – a D7 and a hightrack D5 – about a quarter mile from the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribal Lands.

At about 3 p.m. they started building fireline from point A to point B. After finishing the line to point B, they were told by a “very nice kid from Alaska by the name of Blankenship” to return to point A because the line was complete.

About 14 mile up the fireline, Dillree and the others were stopped. They were told crews were lighting a back burn. The equipment was instructed to stay at the top of the hill to catch any fire that crossed the line.

“I said no because there was a very hot fire below us. I told Blankenship that you couldn’t trust the winds in these mountains,” wrote Dillree Aug. 17, 2007. He and the other operators moved back to point B.

Blankenship returned to point B and he and Dillree talked again about how the west wind that was currently blowing could switch to the east at any time. They watched the fire that was lit for approximately 45 minutes before taking the dozers back up the fire line. After going about 200 yards, the east winds picked up a little bit throwing really thick smoke their way. They retreated to point B.

After the smoke had cleared, Blankenship told Dillree that there was a small spot fire across the line about two-thirds of the way down. He asked if they could put a trail around it as we went by. “When we approached the area we didn’t find a spot fire but a flaming infernal,” wrote Dillree. “Putting our cats in high gear we decided to get the hell out of there.”

After a couple hundred yards of eating a lot of dirt and smoke, a small water truck blocked their retreat. They sat there for several minutes in thick, heavy smoke waiting for him to gather his hoses.

“Being at the end of the line I was in a lot of smoke and there were several times when I couldn’t even see the radiator of my cat,” wrote Dillree. “The fire trail was our lifeline - no other way to get out of there other than going through the fire on either side of the water truck.”

Everyone made it out. Dillree’s truck driver Kyle drove him to camp after he become nauseated and dizzy. Dillree was treated for smoke inhalation.

Dillree’s final statement, “I don’t understand why back burns and building firelines aren’t done in the early morning hours while it is cool and the winds aren’t blowing.”

To Doze or Not to Doze

by Micah Drew

Pathfinder

SEELEY LAKE - When the Jocko Lakes Fire came roaring in from the west, the Seeley and Placid lake areas were vacated. Homes were evacuated and the official population during August included about a thousand firefighters and a mere handful of hardy residents and business owners who opted to stay and defend their livelihoods.

One such resident was Jack Greenwood. Greenwood lives on the west side of Placid Lake—right in line with the fire.

“Knowing the way the fire was moving, if anything was going to get done on the ground we were going to have to do it ourselves,” said Greenwood. “It just took off so fast.”

Greenwood has been working around wildfires since the late 1980s. He was a contract timber faller and has run heavy machinery. He has years of experience building perimeters and dozer lines, and he put that experience to work around his house.

“It’s not that I’m a great firefighter,” said Greenwood, always quick to admit that he’s nothing extraordinary. “It’s that I have the experience and I have that equipment.”

After ensuring that his wife and daughters got out of the area safely and moving his horses to a different location, Greenwood got to work.

He felled timber around his house through the night, then got to work building dozer lines. He started with a perimeter around his house, and then on Sunday night, Aug. 5—the fire had really taken off two days earlier—he went up to the fire.

It was only about 400 yards away from his house at that point. Greenwood started to put in dozer lines on the fire.

“Literally we were building line right on the fire,” said Greenwood. “We were as direct as you could be… it was hot.”

Greenwood recalled Missoula County Sheriff’s Deputy Heath Hanson coming around to see if he would be evacuating. He told Hanson that ‘We’re planning on staying unless it’s doom.” Then he went back to work.

“We were unsupervised, unauthorized on national forest ground putting in dozer lines,” said Greenwood. “Dozer line, where we put it in, actually held.”

There was a fire crew staged nearby in Greenwood’s mother-in-law’s front yard. Every morning Greenwood drove his four-wheeler along his dozer line, then made it over to the fire crew for the morning briefing to get updates on the fire and deliver his own updates on the state of the line.

Between his efforts, the added efforts of a hotshot crew that helped backburn from the dozer line to the fire and additional heavy machinery from the fire crew, the flames never reached his property.

Greenwood isn’t sure if he would have lost everything in the fire if he hadn’t stayed behind to defend his home, but as he pointed out, 400 yards is not very far.

“Did I think I did the right thing? Yeah,” said Greenwood. “We’re under pre-evacuation warning for [the Liberty] fire, and I have no intention of leaving either. My Cat’s in the yard, my excavator’s in the yard. I’ll do what I have to do.”

For Part 1 of the series, visit http://www.seeleylake.com. Next week Part 3 "Untold Stories of the Jocko": The fire cost more than $30 million to suppress but that doesn't include the cost to local businesses. How much did it cost the local economy to have the highway closed for nearly two weeks.

 

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