Untold Stories of the Jocko Lakes Fire

SEELEY LAKE – The $31.5 million price tag for the 2007 Jocko Lakes Fire made it the costliest fire in Montana history to date. During the height of suppression efforts, Montana spent $1 million per day to keep the fire west of Seeley Lake and north of Placid Lake. While the cost to suppress the fire and direct impacts to timber loss were measurable, the financial toll on the local economy from widespread evacuations and the nearly two-week closure of Highway 83 was harder to quantify.

"When you pull the trigger and you tell the [Incident Management] Team, 'Put the fire out,' you have, to a cer...