HAMILTON — In Ravalli County, the ground is dry and the temperatures are high, a perfect mix for wildfires. Several fires have already started this fire season, including the Deer Hollow Fire, which burned about 400 acres near Darby. County officials are shutting down open burning on Monday and reminding Bitterrooters to stay fire safe.
(WATCH: Ravalli County closing open burning Monday, reminding public to be fire safe)
“You can't be too careful when it's this hot in this time of year,” said Erik Hoover, director of the Ravalli County Office of Emergency Management. “The biggest thing we're trying to promote is to prevent the human-caused fires.”
The Bitterroot is no stranger to fire. Ravalli County has the highest wildfire risk to homes of any Montana county.
“What the mapping shows is we're one of the highest wildfire risks really in the nation, and a lot of that focuses on the areas where the residential areas and homes are coming up to the forested areas,” Hoover said. “What we don't want to see is for a fire to start in that area and either come onto the private or go in and spread into the public lands and turn into a large fire.”
The valley has already seen several fire starts, some of which Hoover said are suspected to be human-caused. TO reduce fire risk, the county is shutting down open burning for the season on Monday, July 13th.
“We hate to do it, but in the interest of public safety, we look at what time is appropriate to shut down the open burning, and we're kind of right on schedule when we typically do it,” Hoover said. “That just affects the outdoor open burning, so the field burning and the burn piles and burn barrels and stuff, and just wanted to highlight that the recreational fires, the backyard, your burn pits and stuff for recreation and cooking are still allowed.”
Hoover said that, despite quite a bit of summer rain, the valley floor is very dry throughout the Bitterroot, leading fire starts to spread quickly. Many sparked up during Independence Day weekend, including the Deer Hollow Fire.
While they are not impacted by the burn ban, Hoover said people should be mindful of other ways that fires can start, like campfires, cigarette butts, dragging trailer chains and lawn and agricultural equipment.
“If you do have campfires at these campsites, make sure they're completely cold and dead out before you leave,” he said.
Hoover said that, by doing your part to prevent fires from sparking out of control, you can help protect the Bitterroot as a whole.
“On all of the private lands and county lands we have no full-time paid firefighters. All of these folks are volunteers, and when we have an incident, a human-caused fire, all of those folks are there for us, and they're going to come,” he said. “But, they're leaving their families and leaving their jobs and, honestly, putting their lives at risk to fight these fires. So, we want to do our part to help them.”
