The wildfires near Browning, Montana that Wildfire Today told you about yesterday were approximately 85% contained by Thursday afternoon. The earlier estimates of the number of acres burned has been revised to a total of 18,000 in the two largest fires.
The 6,000-acre Y Fire that started south of Browning near the intersection of Highways 89 and 2, pushed by winds gusting up to 60 mph, was about 19 miles long between Browning and Cut Bank.
The Boy Fire north of Browning on the east side of Route 464 blackened 12,000 acres and was approximately 10 miles long.
About 90 students at the Blackfeet Boarding Dormitory, a Bureau of Indian Affairs housing facility that provides living accommodations for Blackfeet children attending school in Browning, were in the path of the Boy Fire. Here is an excerpt from an article in the Great Falls Tribune:
“Because the fire was moving so darn fast, one of our very first concerns was that boarding school with all those kids that are staying down there,” Running Wolf, [Fire Management Officer for Blackfeet Wildland Fire Management] said. “It became apparent that we had to make an evacuation plan. We wanted to be 2 to 5 miles ahead in evacuating those people before this fire was ever a threat to them.”
But the staff at the boarding dormitory already had taken the initiative by the time crews arrived. According to Lyle McDonald [director of the dormitory], when smoke from the blaze began filtering into the cafeteria, the dormitory activated its evacuation plan. The plan called for the 90 or so students and staff to be loaded into school buses driven in from Browning, and then transported to safety in town. However, as news of the fire spread through Browning, the road leading to the dormitory quickly filled with people coming to see the fire and emergency vehicles heading out to combat the blaze. The school buses from Browning were stuck in traffic.
“Thick smoke was flying down the coulee,” McDonald said. “We were waiting for the buses and smoke started drifting into the building.”
Given the speed of the fire and the delayed buses, dormitory staff decided to load the kids into every available vehicle on campus and get out on their own. Using three Ford Expedition SUVs, all the staff vehicles and several emergency vehicles that arrived on scene, the entire population of the Blackfeet Boarding Dormitory was able to get out in one trip.
