Hot, dry weather causes more wildfires to flare up in Montana

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- New wildfires in Montana over the weekend<br/>added to firefighters' onerous job on Monday, and at least two of<br/>them threatened homes. Eighty homes were ordered evacuated.<br/>

Monday, July 30th 2007, 6:26 pm

By: News On 6

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- New wildfires in Montana over the weekend
added to firefighters' onerous job on Monday, and at least two of
them threatened homes. Eighty homes were ordered evacuated.
One blaze, discovered Saturday and believed to have been
human-caused, had burned about 1,000 acres along Interstate 90 in
western Montana southeast of Missoula. Residents of about 40 homes
were asked to leave, according to fire information officials.
Farther to the southeast near Philipsburg, residents of another
40 homes were ordered to leave in advance of another new blaze that
had burned about 500 acres.
A third fire in the area has been burning for more than two
weeks but flared up recently, said Nick Spang, a fire information
officer. Granite County authorities were prepared to evacuate as
many as 100 homes threatened by the 300-plus-acre wildfire.
The fires were burning not far from the Rock Creek Lodge in
Clinton, home of the Testicle Festival, a five-day bacchanalia
where thousands gather to consume deep-fried bull testicles, also
known as "Rocky Mountain oysters."
The 25th annual bash is set to begin Wednesday, and lodge
co-owner Rodney Lincoln said he was told the fires would not affect
the festival because the fires were moving away from the lodge.
"There's some smoke, but in terms of flames, compared to last
night it's pretty mellow in my estimation," Lincoln said. "A
little smoke isn't going to hurt us. It's not going to deter people
from coming."
A huge plume of smoke was visible in Helena from a fire to the
north in the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness. The fire had
ballooned by nearly 8 square miles to 17.7 square miles Sunday, and
was expected to keep growing Monday in similar "extreme"
conditions, said Bonney McNabb, fire information officer.
Montana and Idaho each had more than a dozen fires, far more
than any other state, according to the National Interagency Fire
Center.
Idaho has seen far more land burned, but its biggest wildfire by
far, a 1,020-square-mile blaze that at one point threatened two
small towns along the Nevada line, was expected to be completely
contained by Tuesday morning, said fire information officer Bill
Watt. Rain last week helped crews battle the two-week-old fire,
which destroyed three outbuildings and killed an unknown number of
cattle.
Elsewhere, a wildfire started Sunday afternoon in eastern
Michigan's Huron National Forest and damaged at least three homes
before firefighters contained it at about 500 acres, police said.
About 100 people were evacuated, although nearly all were allowed
to return to their homes by Sunday night, said state police Sgt.
Tim Gronda.
In California, a nearly month-old wildfire in Santa Barbara
County that had appeared to be standing still flared up over the
weekend, burning 1,500 new acres and causing an evacuation order
for a dozen rural homes, authorities said.
Warm and extremely dry conditions allowed the fire to burn
through old, heavy trees in the Los Padres National Forest on its
uncontained southeast side.
The blaze had consumed about 33,500 acres, or 52 square miles,
since it started July 4. It was 70 percent contained Monday.