(Paradise) – With the River Road East Fire still burning near the towns of Paradise and Plains, New Media Broadcasters talked with Mark Vosburgh a public information officer for the United States Forest Service in Montana about what the cause of the fire is.
“The fire cause has not been determined. It’s under investigation at this point, so we don’t know what that start was, but there is an ongoing investigation, and yes, that information should be forthcoming when that investigation is complete.”
He continues by talking about how big the fire is.
“Right now the fire size is a little over 17,000 acres and there are 15 primary structures that were lost in the fire and then we call them out buildings or other structures that’s somewhere around 35 of that number of structures lost.”
He adds how contained the fire was on August 30th.
“We’re sitting at 14% on the fire is going really well at this point we’re expecting those numbers to be bumping up in the coming days especially since we have some cooler weather but we’re currently at 14% and things are going well and looking towards increasing those numbers over the coming days.”
He continues by telling how many personnel are on the fire.
“As of today, there’s a little over 700 personnel on the fire and that’s a mixture of crews. 20 person crews we have 15 of those we also have 45 engines and engine crews on the fire and six helicopters are currently assigned to the fire.”
He goes on by talking about the efforts being taken against the fire.
“There’s a firing operation which means that we’re doing intentional controlled burning, several hundred acres of unburned fuel and really steep terrain that would be difficult to control with hand crews so we’re using helicopter ignition to do a control burn on that line and get that portion of the fire secured. But around the fire perimeter there’s a lot of different technique from hand lines that the individual crews put in by hand and additional to mechanized line using dozers and other heavy equipment to put in control features around the fire. So, a mix of tactics around that 17,000 acres but again as the main effort is on this controlled firing operation using helicopter ignition is the focus.”
Mark also talked about how this fire impacts Montana.
“Well one of the main impact on all of these fires including this one is there’s a limited number of resources to move around on all of this different fires that are happening not just in Montana but all around the country so these 700 Personnel that are assigned to this fire they are unavailable if other fires were to either break out or need additional help Montana actually is fairly quiet in that right now things are going fairly well but there are other fires around the country. Oregon is having a lot of fires right now, Northern California is also has a lot of fires and all of these crews including the ones that are up here they’re national resources that could be called to a fire anywhere around the country. So, when they’re being used here in Montana, they’re unavailable for other assignments.”
