The fires are still raging in NW Montana. There was a little rain yesterday early morning, which subdued them a bit, but they gathered up momentum again during the day. In the last week, 26 fires have started from lightning in the Kootenai National Forest (which is the forest that surrounds The Shepherd’s Place). We ourselves are not in imminent danger yet, but many properties are. One of the ladies who works for LT had to evacuate her 25 horses (she is a horse trainer), and her family is on stand by to evacuate should the fire get any closer.
The good news is that a Type II team arrived from Alaska yesterday, and they are taking over management of the main fire, which is a few miles from us. Dave and I drove around early this morning to check things out, and we came across the spot where the team has made camp. Here are some photos of what we saw. There are between 100 and 200 firefighters that have arrived. You will also see a lot of heavy equipment that is going to be used to create fire breaks in the mountains.
By the way, our author Ray Yungen arrived a few days ago for a visit we have planned for months with him. He is here to work on some writing projects for about a week. He didn’t know that NW Montana would be on fire when he got here.
The old red fire truck is just an antique that sits there all the time, but the army truck and trailer arrived last night. Most likely, it’s not owned by the US Army but was purchased by the US forestry department to transport firefighters.
May the Lord bless these firefighters who are risking their lives.
My brothers run the company that my dad started 30 years ago, which manufacturers fire fighting equipment. My dad was on the Vancouver, BC Fire Department for 10 years before moving his family to the US. Today, my nephew is driving out from Oregon with a used reconditioned slip-on tank assembly that they are giving to The Shepherd’s Place. While the slip on may not be able to stop a fast moving raging forest fire going through our place, it could put out single fires threatening our buildings. We will be hooking it up today to a 500 gallon water tank that we have on site. Dave has also been cleaning up dead branches and trees near the buildings. We are doing what we can including praying throughout each day for rain.
Here are some pictures we also took this morning of the mountains that are on fire.
The sky is smoky, and the sun was blood red when I took this photo from my office window yesterday morning.
You can see the mountain on fire from a distance.
The trees were “torching.” The evening before last, the place looked like a war zone.
A picture of trees “torching”
