Posted in Cabinet Mountains, Chippy Creek fire, Forest fires, McGregor - Thompson roadless area, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on October 22, 2007 | 10 Comments »
One week ago the last of the access roads into the area of the Chippy Creek fire were re-opened and so yesterday I was able to make my first brief visit into one small part of the burned area near Thompson Peak for a few photos.
The fire started on July 31, 2007 and burned from [...]
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Posted in Chippy Creek fire, Environment, Forest fires, McGregor - Thompson roadless area, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on August 15, 2007 | 16 Comments »
For many years forest fires have been fought by air using helicopters dropping buckets of water and very large aircraft dropping huge amounts of fire-retarding slurry. The helicopters (like this one) can be based very close to the fire and attack quickly, filling their drop buckets from nearby lakes or rivers and if none are [...]
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Posted in Cabinet Mountains, Chippy Creek fire, Environment, Forest fires, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on August 13, 2007 | 6 Comments »
According to the latest news broadcast, the fire expanded by 4,000 acres yesterday and may do about the same again tonight. 70,000 acres or 109 square miles have burned so far, 4.7 million dollars has been spent to fight it, and it’s 30% contained. It’s the largest one in Montana at the time and [...]
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When I was photographing the northeast end of the Chippy Creek fire Friday, as I looked to the southeast, this was what it looked like along the Little Bitterroot River.
While looking at it, who would think that the following scenes would be seen by simply turning around!
I suspect this isn’t the first time that [...]
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Posted in Animals, Bighorn sheep, Chippy Creek fire, Forest fires, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on August 11, 2007 | 6 Comments »
Yesterday while vectoring around to find a good angle for photographing the progress of the Chippy Creek fire, I ran into these Bighorns at the edge of the prairie. The problem is, if the current effort to stop the fire’s northeasterly progress isn’t successful, they are right in its path. They do have an escape [...]
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Posted in Cabinet Mountains, Chippy Creek fire, Environment, Forest fires, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on August 10, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Today’s weather forecast included a “red flag alert” for fire danger, meaning warm and dry with very low humidity and high winds in the afternoon, exactly what you don’t want if you’re fighting a wildfire. Just the kind of day to check on the Chippy Creek fire.
By this morning the fire had grown to [...]
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In my travels through the wild country, as I look closely at the detail of the land, the sign of fire is everywhere; charcoal at the bases of ancient rock formations, newer black still low on the bark of century-old pines. It has been here before: fire is not new to the wilderness.
The world of [...]
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There are “two sets of rules”… “one for the rich, and one for the rest of us”.
At the present time there are 14 large wildfires burning in Montana and they have consumed a total of more than a quarter of a million acres. I’m quite familiar with two of the fires.
One of them is the [...]
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Posted in Cabinet Mountains, Chippy Creek fire, Conservation, Environment, Forest fires, McGregor - Thompson roadless area, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on August 5, 2007 | 8 Comments »
Today I’m glad that I had the chance to get some shots of the Chippy Creek fire yesterday. The breeze has shifted slightly bringing smoke into this area today and the visibility here is about one mile, making photos impossible. I’ll now post a few more shots taken yesterday to provide a little more [...]
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Posted in Cabinet Mountains, Chippy Creek fire, Forest fires, McGregor - Thompson roadless area, Montana, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Photos, Pictures on August 3, 2007 | 8 Comments »
These photos were taken from 20 miles away. Imagine what it is like up close! They are 15,000 foot high columns of smoke from the Chippy Creek fire here in western Montana. (This site has some good photos of the fire. I did not approach the area myself because the responding equipment needs all the [...]
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