I'm posting this in case anyone had any plans operating out of Hamilton, Mt. (Ravalli County Airport)

Also the Stevensville, Mt airport is closed for 3 months for a construction project.

The Roaring Lion Fire literally exploded yesterday. The TFR runs right up just to the southern edge of the Airport. It's a very serious situation with a lot of homes lost and hundreds evacuated.

Check out this 2 minute time line from a Nest Cam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIj4b1nRfds

Here is the inciweb report on it:

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4913/

Last night from the center of town.

http://m.imgur.com/4edB0CB

Rich,

Hopefully Piney field will be spared the fire and brimstone! I hear ash and embers are blowing all over the Bitterroot. I was looking forward to returning in a couple weeks to do some fishing and homeschooling from the masters. Its been a while since I've been to the homefront and could use a refresher course... maybe with your help and some proactive, dynamic use of low ground effect I could get the 180 in and out. The new wing should help too.

Flew Air Tach out of Hamilton down on a big fire to the south a bit,maybe Ravali?? been a long time, Big lodge on top of a mountain, spent a lot of resources keeping it from burning!! Good people there!!

I talked to a friend Monday who works for Neptune Air Tankers. They said that the pilots working the fire reported that the flames were shooting too high (said over 300 feet) to make air drops on it. Scary shit for sure.

The only thing that stops fires like this is weather and running out of fuel to burn or less steep terrain to slow it down. Air resources don't do anything except possibly assist in protecting individual structures.

Acquaintances have probably lost everything.

Rumors and innuendo abound, mostly centered on a camper who had a tarp shelter over an open fire where a webcam from the valley clearly shows the ignition. The 2000 fire had a human behind at least one of the two major blazes.

M6RV6 wrote:Flew Air Tach out of Hamilton down on a big fire to the south a bit,maybe Ravali?? been a long time, Big lodge on top of a mountain, spent a lot of resources keeping it from burning!! Good people there!!

The Grub Steak? I've been watching the IR maps and it appears the fire is about a mile to a mile and a half south of the lodge as of yesterday morning. They should be posting this mornin'g IR map any time. Direct link to the maps page on Roaring Lion inciweb http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/maps/4913/