Fires force rural departments to adapt
This summer more than 400,000 acres of wildlands burned in Montana.
Much of the firefighting effort came from firefighters at local, volunteer fire departments, like the one in Bigfork. When wildfires require more resources from federal and state agencies, local volunteer departments are required to step into a role they’re not always used to, fire safety officer Rick Trembath says.
Trembath, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Bigfork for 33 years, will speak next week at the Bigfork Volunteer Fire Department about fire safety in the wildland urban interface — where people are living more and more. Trembath has retired from the Forest Service, but he works as a contract safety officer on forest fires. This summer he was on three fires in the Swan Valley and a large fire in Alaska. “I try to make an inherently unsafe situation, more safe,” he said.
And when he is helping manage fires where firefighters from around the country are fighting fire in terrain they’re not familiar with, it’s Trembath’s job to make sure they are safe.
For instance, this summer, when he had firefighters from around the country working in steep, heavily forested terrain in the Swan Valley, it was important that Trembath was there to help manage safety. The firefighters came from New Mexico, Minnesota, and Alberta.
“The fire wasn’t what they’re used to. They’re good firefighters, they’re just out of their element,” he said. “We had to spend more time on tactical strategy and fire management.”
Trembath got his start in fire safety from Earl Cooley, one of the early leaders in fire management, who told Trembath a saying that he remembers today: “Anybody can see what a fire did. Your job is to be ahead of that, to see what it’s going to do, not what it’s doing.”
“It was a really good lesson,” Trembath said, “and I’ve always brought that with me to my job. If you don’t know what the fire is going to do, how can you prepare for it?”
That kind of mindset is especially important in the wildland urban interface — places like Ferndale, which is on the back side of Crane Mountain, or Swan Hill, an area next to Bigfork that is heavily timbered and populated with homes. These are areas that have high amounts of forest fuels to the west of them, which often places the residents directly in the line of a west-to-east fire path.
Even the town of Lakeside has a high amount of fuels directly to the west of it, though a good initial attack of a fire start would likely protect that town, Trembath said.
About the only constant aspects of wildland fires is the yellow color of the firefighters’ shirts, and what is used to help put out a fire — water. Other than that, “a fire isn’t always a fire,” Trembath said. That’s why the emphasis is always on education up and down the chain of command. They’re always learning about fire management, even while fires are being fought.
Now we are seeing the results of under-managed forests, Trembath said, and that puts more wildland residents in harm’s way if they don’t reduce fuel loads around their homes.
“You either have logging and forest management or you have wild fires,” Trembath said. “I don’t think there’s another option.” Without logging, he said, “you build fuel, you build fuel, and then it burns.”
One area that is prime to burn is the east shore of Flathead Lake on the eastern flank of Crane Mountain and the Mission Mountains.
“There’s a tremendous fuel load there, and some day it’s going to burn,” Trembath said. Not all fires should be put out, either, if we’re not going to actively manage the forests, Trembath said.
Trembath teaches fire ecology at Flathead Valley Community College. He will be on hand during fire prevention week next week at Bigfork Volunteer Fire Department to show his experiences in wildland fire management.