Wildfires burning in Idaho and Wyoming degraded Montana’s air quality Tuesday, particularly in the southeastern corner of the state.
Smoke plumes are traveling from hundreds of miles away and creeping over Montana as the potential for more wildland fires in the region remains high through the rest of September. Currently, some of the biggest fires in the United States are burning in Idaho and Wyoming.
This image from a Montana Department of Transportation camera showed smoke covering the area along U.S. Highway 212 between Ashland and Broadus on Sept. 3, 2024.
Image courtesy of the Montana Department of Transportation
“We can’t see it, but we can smell it,” said Taylor Thrush, head nurse of Powder River Public Health.
Particulates in the air over Montana started increasing at the close of Labor Day weekend. By Tuesday morning, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s air monitoring system showed a moderate risk for Montanans who were sensitive to smoke in the northwestern part of the state. To the southeast, however, smoke was becoming dense enough to be dangerous for everyone.
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As of late Tuesday morning, the DEQ’s monitoring station in Broadus showed an air quality index of 169. The index starts at zero and runs up to 500, with specific stages in between marked for their potential health risks. At an air quality index of 169, even healthy residents in and around Broadus could experience health effects from the smoke, while those sensitive to smoke could be at risk for serious health complications.
“We’ve seen an increase in people with allergy symptoms,” Thrush said, “but we haven’t seen anybody describing symptoms of asthma associated with the smoke.”
Image courtesy of Montana Department of Environmental Quality
The air quality index for Broadus peaked at nearly 200 on Tuesday, according to the DEQ, before dropping to healthier levels. Broadus Public Schools still allowed their kids to go outside for recess, Thrush said, but the past summer has been a smoky one for the sparsely populated county. Powder River County is home to a high rate of elderly residents, she said, who are particularly vulnerable to wildfire smoke.
“Then of course our ranchers are often the first on the scene with the fires here,” she said, “or working in the smoke.”
In late August, drought conditions in southeastern Montana ranged from abnormally dry to severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Like many Montana counties, Powder River County currently has a fire restriction in place, Thrush said, and it will like stay in place until the county gets some snowfall.
On its way to the edge of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, the nearly 200,000-acre Remington fire cut through a corner of Powder River County. The fire started in northern Wyoming last month and jumped the border into Montana, threatening several agricultural communities in its path. Before crews were able to start containing the fire in late August, the cost of damage from the blaze was estimated to be in well into the six figures, the Gazette previously reported. As of Tuesday, fire was about 86% contained.
A massive plume of smoke rises from the Remington Fire, which is burning in northern Wyoming and southern Montana.
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“We’ve been pretty damn active this year,” said Raymond Ragsdale, fire chief for the Broadus Volunteer Fire Department, “and we’ve had pretty good turnouts from our firemen.”
Ragsdale, who has been with the department for over two decades, joined his crew members in responding to the Remington fire as it passed through his home county. Broadus Volunteer Fire Department has also been called in to assist in wildfires burning over the border in Wyoming, most recently the Silver Spoon fire north of Recluse.
Those living in towns in the state’s northwest also woke up to smoke Tuesday. From Libby to Lewistown, the DEQ’s monitoring data showed moderately poor air quality. The origin of the smoke hindering the air quality across the state was most likely fires in Idaho and Wyoming, according to the National Weather Service.
Image courtesy of Montana Department of Environmental Quality
The winds that brought the smoke into Montana should see it out over the next few days, NWS Meteorologist Peter Matos said. Fires in Idaho, where well over 200,000 acres are currently burning, were the main contributors to plumes of smoke in Montana. The largest active wildfire in Idaho on Tuesday was the 108,000-acre Wapiti fire within Sawtooth National Forest. In western Wyoming, the Fish Creek fire burning in Teton National Forest generated enough smoke to cause the state’s Department of Transportation to close a highway because of low visibility.
Nationally, around 34,000 wildfires have torched 6,459,301 acres this year, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center. Over the past 10 years, an annual average of 42,206 fires have burned 5,187,753 acres. The NIFC published a forecast for September that had most of Idaho, southern Montana and northern Wyoming having above-normal potential for significant wildfires.
In Montana, crews were responding to 46 active wildfires Tuesday, most of them estimated to be less than 5,000 acres and burning in the western portion of the state.
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Publish date : 2024-09-03 10:30:00
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