Skip to footer

Crews battle Montana wildfire, ski lodge evacuation lifted

Visitors were free to return to the ski area at the Red Lodge Mountain Resort Saturday evening, after being evacuated as a precautionary move due to a 700-acre wildfire nearby.

|
U.S. Forest Service/AP
The Wildland Fire burns along Nichols Creek Saturday, near Red Lodge, Montana. Authorities evacuated a ski lodge in southern Montana because of a wind-driven wildfire heading toward it.
  • By Associated Press

| Red Lodge, Mont.

Dozens of firefighters battled a wind-fueled wildfire in southern Montana that prompted the shot-term evacuation of a ski lodge.

The unseasonable blaze a few miles west of the community of Red Lodge had grown to 700 acres by Saturday night, but evacuations had been lifted, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jeff Gildehaus said.

The fire began on open private land, but it was driven by winds gusting 35 to 50 mph into the Custer National Forest, where the Red Lodge Mountain Resort ski area is located.

"There's snow between the ski area and the fire and the timber. But it's also a solid run of timber from where the fire is to the ski area," Gildehaus said. "So it gets up in the trees and starts running the crowns of the trees and it starts advancing toward the ski area."

He said that the decision to evacuate the ski area was made about 2:30 p.m. Saturday as a precautionary move and because there was just one road for firefighters and skiers to use.

But hours later with the evacuations ended, Gildehaus said people were free to return to the ski area.

He said the winds had eased somewhat and were expected to continue that course through the night.

He wasn't sure how many people had been evacuated, but he estimated about 500.

No one answered the telephone at the ski area Saturday afternoon. The resort posted on its Facebook page that guests were safe and being escorted down the mountain by law enforcement.

The fire burned around rural homes, but no structures were damaged, Gildehaus said.

With still no containment by Saturday night, the blaze had grown in size to 700 acres from 200 acres reported earlier in the day.

Dozens of firefighters were battling the blaze.

Wildfires in the area at this time of year are unusual, he said.

"But down in the low elevation, there isn't any snow and things are pretty dry," Gildehaus said. "We haven't really had any green-up yet where grasses turn green. We got all the dry grass from last year, and things are pretty dry."

Other wildfires were reported elsewhere Saturday in Montana and northern Wyoming.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Crews battle Montana wildfire, ski lodge evacuation lifted
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0329/Crews-battle-Montana-wildfire-ski-lodge-evacuation-lifted
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe