Will we lose Glacier's oldest souls?

It was Aug. 10. A Sunday afternoon. The wind was blowing. Hard.

The Robert Fire had been contained on Apgar Mountain for the past several weeks. Firefighters had set burnouts and dropped water and it appeared the fire was under control.

But the fire had other plans. Stoked by that wind, embers crossed the Camas Road like a stone skipping across a pond.

And within hours, Howe Ridge in Glacier National Park was an inferno.

That was 15 years ago.

So when Sunday rolled around, 15 years and two days later, there I stood, watching Howe Ridge burn again.

I have to admit that I was intrigued by the fire. In those 15 years I’ve watched plenty of Glacier Park real estate go up in smoke, but this was the first fire with any intensity that I’ve watched burn an area twice.

This exact spot that was burning again was actually not part of the initial run of the Robert Fire back in 2003. It was part of a burnout operation designed to keep the fire from going east.

It worked back then.

But now it was burning all that downed timber from years past, plus the “doghair” lodgepole pine that grew back in the post-fire world.

It was fascinating in the sense that the fire was burning all the small trees and thick brush, but the larger trees — larch that had survived 15 years ago, were not burning — at least not the crowns.

It will be interesting to see if they were able to survive the ground fire. Mature larch have bark that’s several inches thick at the base. They’re made for fire regimes.

Their survival will depend on how hot the ground fire was. Time will tell.

I feel badly for the folks who lost their cabins in the fire. Kelly’s Camp is a special place. I’ve “trespassed” through it on skis on more than one occasion in the winter months. There are generations of memories there.

But I suspect things will get worse before they get better.

This fire, unless we see appreciable rain, can easily run up the McDonald Creek Valley. We can throw every airplane and helicopter on the planet at it and it won’t go out.

With months left in the fire season, Howe Ridge could wipe out the oldest residents in Glacier. We can rebuild cabins. We can’t replace the 600-year-old giant cedar forests in the way of this fire.

I have hiked those ancient groves on many occasions. Come face to face with grizzly bears there, just a hundred yards away from the hum of humanity on the Sun Road.

It is one of the finest places in the park.

But I hold no optimism for its future.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.