Fire season a delayed one, but despite rain, precip still below normal for region

If we get a little rain every now and then, this year’s fire season will likely be a delayed one, area fire managers are saying, but as summer drags on, there’s an increasing chance for an above normal fire season again this year.

The energy release component — a way firefighters measure the fire potential of fuels — was on its way up like past summers just a few days ago.

But recent rain events have quelled that trend for now.

In past week, Glacier Park International Airport has seen .77 inch of rain and there’s been far more than that in the mountains. West Glacier has seen 1.72 inches of rain and St. Mary about .93 inch of rain on Glacier National Park’s east side.

The National Weather Service is predicting a chance of rain just about every day this week, which should add to the total.

Long range outlooks are calling for this region to be warmer, but slightly wetter than normal, noted Flathead National Forest fire manager officer Rick Connell during a media briefing last week.

While predicting a fire season months out is very much an inexact science, timely summer rains can squash a fire season. The recent rains still haven’t made up an overall precipitation deficit. For the month, the Kalispell region is .8 inch below normal and 1.41 inches below normal for the year as measured at the airport.

Last year wildfires burned about 147,000 acres of land in the Northern Rockies region. The median is about 202,140 acres, Connell noted. The all-time record was set in 2017 with 1.5 million acres. The geographical boundary for the Northern Rockies Area includes the states of Montana, North Dakota, and northern Idaho, Yellowstone National Park, and a small portion of South Dakota.

While last summer was another hot and dry one — with almost no rain in July and August, there also wasn’t much lightning, Connell noted. Lightning is the top cause of wildfires. The Flathead National Forest saw 9,272 acres burn and most of that was in the Bob Marshall Wilderness from a total of 38 starts.

Glacier National Park saw seven fire starts and 17,435 acres burn — the biggest was the Howe Ridge Fire, which burned down several cabins along Lake McDonald and shut down the Going-to-the-Sun Road for weeks.

We’re definitely in a fire cycle, however. From 1889-1930, the Flathead National Forest saw about 1 million acres burn. From 1990 to the present, about 1.076 million acres burned.

While there are a variety of factors at play, including drought and climate change, Connell notes the numbers also align with the life cycle of trees — it takes about 70 to 100 years for most species to grow back to maturity, and thus, be primed to burn again.