Pictures from the Swan Lake Fire Crew

2003 Fire Season

Above:  Me on the Estes Lake fire, Swan Lake RD, 2003.

        2003 was my second season working for the Swan Lake Ranger District on the Flathead National Forest, and my third season in fire.  It started out as a very slow season, but picked up in a hurry the last few weeks in July.  At one point there were 5 large incidents on the forest.  The Robert fire and the Crazy Horse fire are two in particular that stand out in my memory.  The Robert fire was human-caused and was near Glacier National Park.  My engine module and a 4-person squad from the handcrew were called in from our district to the Hungry Horse RD to help with the initial attack, but all we could really do was sit back and watch.  The fire was moving too rapidly to attack with the few resources we had.  In an odd twist of fate, the fire eventually burned over a smaller fire that we had put put in the Park earlier in the year.  As luck would have it, I had left my camera in my locker at the cache that day, and as a result got no pictures of the impressive fire behavior.  Although I have seldom been without a camera since, I have yet to see that kind of fire again.  I guess 150-foot flames crossing highways are hard to find when you're prepared.

        The Crazy Horse fire was memorable as well, although I was never on the fire.  It started in the Mission Mountain Wilderness the day after I quit for the season.  It then took a large run outside of the wilderness, eventually forcing the evacuation of the few homes in the Kraft Creek area of the Swan Valley.  How is this related to me you ask?  Well, my family's home was located in the path of the fire.  All summer I had traveled throughout the area putting out fires, including two in the Mission Mountains, and now, the day after I had quit, fire was being brought home.  My dad and I had just returned from taking my mom to the airport in Missoula when we saw flames cresting the top of Red Butte in the Missions.  The next few days were a flurry of activity as we hurried to further fire-proof our house.  We had already taken the basic precautions as a part of living in the woods: clearing brush, having a metal roof on the house, keeping flammables like firewood and brooms away from the house.  Now we removed even more brush and taped up any place where a spark could get into our house.  After 3 days of waiting, we were finally told to evacuate, and packed up our trucks, loaded up the dogs, and left.  Two days later we rejoined my mom and sister at my sister's home in Anchorage, Alaska.  It was a bit surreal being so far away from home and have so much excitement taking place.  It was the most exciting thing to happen on the District and in the community in my lifetime, and I was gone for most of it.  Upon returning two weeks later, things had calmed down, the fire was out, and our home was intact.  The fire had burned within 2/3 of a mile of our property, but had been stopped by a sudden change in the weather.

And now the pictures of my season...

Setting up a blivet at the district	Mopping up on the Bunyan Ridge fire	Sign in the cache at the district
Flathead National Forest Fire Mgt. Logo	Mark doing daily engine check on  engine 11      (E-11)	Randy and Jerod chatting during daily engine checks on E-11
"Overhead" at Boorman Engine Academy	Crew picture after the Frenchy Ridge fire, in the Mission Mtn. Wilderness	Crew on the Frenchy Ridge fire
Looking down on the crew on the Frenchy Ridge fire	Summer and Tyler on the Frenchy Ridge fire	Hemlock drainage in the Mission Mtn. Wilderness, seen from the Frenchy Ridge fire
The Hemlock Ridge fire, also in the Mission Mtn. Wilderness	The Hemlock fire was typical of IAs in this area	Helicopter dropping water on the Hemlock fire
Another drop on the Hemlock fire	Mopping up on the Glacier Creek fire	E-11 and crew on the Glacier Creek fire
USFS and MT DNRC crew on the Woodward Point fire	DNRC crew leader Dylan D. on the Woodward Point fire	Helicopter taking off from Condon airstrip
Swan Lake crew taking a break on the Estes Lake fire	Randy and Tyler, after mop-up on the Estes Lake fire	Randy, on the Porcupine Creek fire, with the Swan range in the back
The Crazy Horse fire	The Crazy Horse fire, from my parent's yard	Yet another look at the Crazy Horse fire
The Crazy Horse fire from my house	Another look at the Crazy Horse fire from my house	"Smokechaser" pack used for wilderness fires

Next Gallery - Seeley Lake RD

"Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to."  - H. Mumford Jones