Remote Fire Found in Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness
Incident: Whitebark Prescribed Fire
Released: 8/20/2008
DILLON, MONT., Aug. 20, 2008, 5 p.m.-A fire reconnaissance flight this morning found a small fire burning on a remote ridge in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, 26 miles southwest of Philipsburg.
The fire appears to have started from lightning on Tuesday (August 19) but so far has burned just one-tenth acre of whitebark pine.
Because of the fire's location, its low potential to grow, and the relatively mild fire season, Forest Service officials have decided not to try to put the fire out.
"With rain coming soon this fire won't do much except improve conditions for future whitebark pine," Jack de Golia, spokesman for the Dillon Interagency Dispatch Center said.
The fire is about one mile west of Johnson Lake, three miles southeast of Ivanhoe Lake, and two miles northeast of Bitterroot Pass.
The blaze is in the part of the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness that's in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
For more information on the Whitebark fire, go to http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1493/
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Editor's Note: Unless events warrant, future news releases about this fire will only be posted at the above Inciweb site.
