While the fire has grown to 6,700 acres, the forestry team gave us a positive report at last night’s town meeting in that the fire line that firefighters have built nearly half way around the fire is holding at this time. This line is most crucial as it lies between the fire and all of the properties that could be affected. The area that does not have any fire line is facing toward the interior of the mountains and away from homes and properties. And of course, the hope and prayer is that rain will come soon and put out this and all the fires in the northwest part of this country and Canada.
Regarding our fire, while there is still the risk of spread toward properties north and south (we are north) should the fire go around the fire line, there has been a little rain and lower temperatures the last couple of days in northwest Montana, which is helping to slow down fire growth. But at LT, we are feeling that we are in a much safer position than we were last week when the fire line had not yet been secured and temperatures were very high and there was a lot of fire growth. And thus far, there have been no properties lost in this particular fire, nor has there been any loss of life to firefighters. And we are happy to say that, for us anyway, we have lost no scenery beauty as the fire damage is further south. We are sorry that one of the people who works in our office has lost scenery beauty near her family’s property.
We know that this year’s fire season has been and continues to be devastating to many lives and communities throughout the northwest part of this country and Canada. We believe over a dozen firefighters have lost their lives, many Native American reservations have been on fire, and many properties and homes have been destroyed, not to mention all the thousands of acres of forest that have been destroyed. The fire season isn’t over yet, and we continue to pray for rain and protection for ourselves and the many others affected. We also pray that through this tragedy, many will turn their hearts toward the Lord Jesus Christ in true surrender to Him. As we were writing this letter, we received a phone call from a Native American LT reader who told us that some of her friends and family who are on reservations that are burning are crying out to the Lord.
Thank you for praying for us. Dave has been spending the last few weeks focused on cleaning up dead wood in our own forest, but today, he got back to working on the electrical. Our volunteers who were going to help him with the electrical couldn’t come after all, but Dave thinks he can have the rough in electrical done by the end of September.
Our new 10 x 20 maintenance room off the “Light House” is done enough that we can store books and tools in there for the winter. I’ll post some photos soon.