Red Bench Reborn
A garden of wood rose blooms in the shadow of an old ponderosa pine, a survivor of the Red Bench Fire. (Chris Peterson photo)
An aspen thicket, 35 years after the Red Bench fire. (Chris Peterson photo)
A grasshopper sparrow on a blackened stump — a remnant of the Red Bench Fire of 35 years ago. (Chris Peterson photo)
Thirty Five years ago on Sept. 6, 1988, the Red Bench wildfire raced across the North Fork. A smoldering snag from a week–old lightning strike burst into flames on the Flathead National Forest near Red Meadow Creek.
Stoked by prevailing winds, it raced across the landscape and into Glacier National Park.
All told, approximately 38,000 acres of national park, national forest, and private land were within the fire perimeter, according to an account by Park Service interpreter Joe Decker.
Property damage was high with the loss of 25 dwellings and numerous outbuildings. In Glacier, the historic character of the Polebridge Ranger Station was altered when fire destroyed five buildings in addition to the bridge across the North Fork of the Flathead River. Tragically, one firefighter, Patrick David, 26, of Bonners Ferry, Idaho was killed when a burning tree fell onto the Red Meadow Creek Road. Four others were injured.
All told, 19 firefighters were injured on the line battling the blaze.
Due to extremely dry and windy conditions, fire fighters were in a full suppression mode, but little could be done to halt the fire’s advance. At one point the fire was moving forward at nearly 15 miles per hour. Eleven days later, cool temperatures, light winds, and rain reduced the flames to ashes and isolated hotspots, Decker noted.
But this story isn’t about human or ecological loss. It’s about ecological recovery.
Some 35 years later, particularly in Glacier National Park where the landscape has gone virtually untouched since the fire, the landscape is a vibrant and healing one.
Most of the burned snags are gone or have fallen over. They’ve been replaced by young forests of lodgepole, spruce, Ponderosa pine and aspens, interspersed with meadows and native grasses, ideal habitat for whitetail deer and elk.
In fact, some of the aspen thickets, now decades old, are actually beginning to show signs of age.
Aspens are clonal in nature, and an entire stand is often just one living organism.
These young woods are rife with bird and animal life. Some of the woods and meadows still host old-growth trees as well — survivors of the blaze and likely many others that burned before Red Bench. One old Ponderosa in the heart of the Red Bench Fire is hundreds of years old based on its size.
Today, a large wild wood rose garden grows near it flanks.
The Red Bench Fore may have consumed more than 38,000 acres. But the Glacier landscape, over time, shows a remarkable resilience and like most things left to nature, a remarkable beauty.
