Passenger Trains > Essex, Izaak Walton Inn evacuated

Sheriff’s Office Issues Evacuation Order for Essex Area, Highway 2 Closed

Officials say the Sheep Fire was rapidly moving toward Essex, forcing
the mandatory evacuation of the community

Flathead Beacon
by Justin Franz & Dillon Tabish

Aug 27, 2015, 3 p.m.

> The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office is evacuating the Essex area and
> a section of U.S. Highway 2 is closed as the Sheep Fire grows to
> within half a mile of the community near the edge of Glacier National
> Park.
>
> According to Jennifer Rankosky of the Flathead County Office of
> Emergency Services, deputies were going door-to-door Thursday
> afternoon telling residents they had to leave immediately. Over 200
> structures, including homes and cabins, are at risk, according to
> fire managers. The Izaak Walton Inn is also being evacuated.
>
> U.S. Highway 2 was closed Thursday afternoon from mile markets 176.8
> to 185.
>
> The American Red Cross is setting up an emergency shelter at the West
> Glacier Elementary Schoool at 160 Old River Bridge Road.
>
> There will be a public meeting Thursday night at the West Glacier
> Elementary School at 8 p.m. It will be held in the gym of the school
> at 160 Old Bridge Road.
>
> Essex has been under a pre-evacuation order since Aug. 19 as the
> Sheep Fire threatened the community and two critical transportation
> corridors, U.S. Highway 2 and BNSF Railway’s main line between
> Seattle and Chicago. As of Thursday morning, the fire had burned more
> than 1,111 acres just south of Essex. It has doubled in size this
> week and is burning in steep terrain with limited road access.
>
> The fire activity increased Thursday afternoon, triggering the
> evacuation. There are 310 personnel fighting the blaze.
>
> “This is definitely the priority,” Sonja Hartmann, public information
> officer with Thompson-Divide Complex, said.

LINK:

Sheriffs Office Issues Evacuation Order for Essex


The railroad is closed to freight and passenger trains. Firefighting
trains may still be running.  The Empire Builder is in Service Disruption
status.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/15 17:07 by GenePoon.

Fire Update: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4468/.  Looks like Smtrak #7 is stopped at Shelby.   --Mary in Whitefish, MT--

Another local media item:

As fire grows, Essex area being evacuated
The Daily Inter Lake
August 27, 2015 4:52 pm

> In the face of the growing Sheep Fire, evacuation orders went out
> Thursday afternoon for the Essex area on the southern edge of Glacier
> National Park.
>
> The Flathead County Sheriff’s Office issued a “mandatory and
> immediate” evacuation order.
>
> Essex had been under a pre-evacuation warning since Aug. 19.
>
> Undersheriff Dave Leib confirmed Thursday afternoon that the
> evacuations would begin around 2:30 p.m.
>
> Essex is home to a population of 59, according to the U.S. Census.
>
> Leib said the evacuation will apply from the Goat Lick Bridge on U.S.
> 2 west to the Schellinger gravel pit. He estimated about 70 people
> would be affected by the evacuation order.
>
> The fire, which has been burning south of Essex, was last measured at
> 1,111 acres Thursday morning.
>
> Gregg Dinetto, a spokesman for the incident management team fighting
> the fire, said increased fire activity prompted the evacuation, but
> no structures were imminently threatened.
>
> “The evacuation, although mandatory, is somewhat precautionary to
> allow people to evacuate in an orderly fashion and to allow our folks
> to get themselves established,” Dinetto said.
>
> While the wind hadn’t picked up significantly by midafternoon, the
> inversion over the fire had lifted, resulting in higher fire
> activity.
>
> “It was putting up some pretty nice columns and you’re seeing lots of
> flame,” Dinetto said. “From what I saw at this time, it’s still
> basically about the same distance [from Essex], but it’s still up
> there on the ridge a ways and has a decent potential for making a
> run, especially if there were some winds behind it.”
>
> Firefighters are prioritizing structure protection in Essex while
> helicopters drop retardant on the fire front.
>
> A structure protection task force of fire engines from several fire
> departments, including Whitefish, Martin City, Coram and Creston, was
> dispatched to the Essex area around 2 p.m. Thursday.
>
> U.S. 2 still was open with pilot cars escorting traffic through the
> Essex area Thursday afternoon. “It’s possible that can change,” a
> Montana Department of Transportation dispatcher said. “At this time,
> we don’t have the go-ahead” to close the highway.
>
> Dinetto said that while the distance of the flame front from the
> highway and BNSF Railway line was holding at about a half mile and a
> third of a mile, respectively, that side of the fire was also showing
> higher activity.
>
> “Some of the perimeter of the fire above the river area was also
> becoming more active, and was basically starting to organize itself,”
> he said. “Some of these little fires that might have been scattered
> around are starting to come together, build up some heat and become
> much more active, having much more potential for spread and
> spotting.”
>
> The National Weather Service is predicting moderate winds in the fire
> area until Saturday when a cold front is expected to bring gusts up
> to 32 miles per hour with sustained wind between 18 and 23 miles per
> hour.

LINK:

As fire grows, Essex area being evacuated

This is not looking good! Hopefully they can get this fire under control anytime now!

For the sake of everyone in the region, I hope this ends well.
And on a personal note, I'm supposed to be there the first week in October....

The scene at Two Medicine Lake in Glacier National Park on 10 August.

The Izaac Walton Inn.

---

---

milepost1208 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like Amtrak #7 is stopped at Shelby.

Still there at 11:15p MT.  8/28 headed for Spokane but probably won't go any farther.

Checked latest fire report - seems like the incident commander has a good plan for preventing damage to structures in Essex, though the fire is obviously too close to keep U.S. 2 and BNSF open.  BNSF has posted an official Service Interruption notice:

"BNSF is experiencing an operational impact due to track outage, caused by wildfires in Essex, Montana. Essex, Montana approximately 52 miles East of Whitefish, Montana. The estimated time for opening for the main track has not been determined.

BNSF will continue to provide you with additional information as it becomes available. Customers may experience delays of 24 to 36 hours on shipments moving through this corridor."

No. 7 made it through the area last night, albeit now 10 hours late approaching Libby, MT.

No. 8 has departed West Glacier (Belton), MT this morning at 0837, 21 minutes late.
Dave in Msla

BNSF and Amtrak both running intermittently as they are safely able to.  Last I heard, the fire was only about 120 yards from the tracks.  --Mary in Whitefish, MT--

milepost1208 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BNSF and Amtrak both running intermittently as
> they are safely able to.  Last I heard, the fire
> was only about 120 yards from the tracks.  --Mary
> in Whitefish, MT--

That must be quite a show for the passengers.
 

Update from the Daily Interlake:

...At a meeting for evacuated residents and other impacted community members Thursday night at West Glacier Elementary School, deputy incident commander Mike Goicoechea said Friday and Saturday will be critical days for firefighters as a cold, dry front will bring unpredictable high winds and gusts to the area.“As far as weather goes, that’s not good news,” he said Thursday. “If we can get through tomorrow and Saturday, it sounds like a trough is coming in off the West Coast, which will start bringing some of those more normal, fall-like temperatures we’re used to.”Until then, his incident management team is preparing for the worst.

Multiple drainages in the area will funnel wind through a complex of varying terrain, making the fire’s activity and direction all but impossible to predict.“You’ve got three drainages — Sheep Creek, McDonald Creek and Essex Creek — and what happens is the winds funnel down those drainages and come into the Middle Fork drainage,” said David Greathouse, the team’s fire behavior specialist. “For lack of a better term, when all these winds come together, it just starts swirling.”

The evacuation applied to an estimated 70 residents, according to Flathead County Undersheriff Dave Leib, but the seasonal nature of the Essex’s residents had precluded an exact headcount as of Thursday night.Goicoechea said the development of a smoke column early Thursday afternoon prompted the evacuation, when fire officials alerted Sheriff Chuck Curry of increasing activity and the fact that the fire front had reached a trigger point near McDonald Creek.Curry then made the call to evacuate the community, which had been on a pre-evacuation notice since Aug. 19.

“The bigger it gets, the harder it gets to predict what it’s going to do,” Goicoechea told the meeting attendees. “When it stands up with that column it’s really challenging, and that last thing we want to do is have you try to get out of there at a moment’s notice and have chaos occur.”On the bright side, the evacuation has elevated the priority level for the personnel-strapped management team. Goicoechea announced that a Type 1 hotshot crew had finally arrived, which the team had been requesting since it took over operations 15 days earlier.

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/critical-weather-ahead-for-fire-threatening-essex/article_d4fdefae-4da0-11e5-8687-0377dbf16594.html?mode=jqm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/15 14:13 by GenePoon.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> milepost1208 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > BNSF and Amtrak both running intermittently as
> > they are safely able to.  Last I heard, the
> fire
> > was only about 120 yards from the tracks.
>  --Mary
> > in Whitefish, MT--
>
> That must be quite a show for the passengers.

I witnessed a raging forest fire in northern Idaho a few weeks ago, only about 1000 feet from I-90 near Coeur d'Alene. At night, as well. It was, indeed, quite a show. It was insane that the fire was so close to the highway. I guess in Idaho and Montana, where forest fires are common, the firefighters are well-trained enough to allow fires to get bracingly close to roads and railways.

Tor in Eugene



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/15 14:57 by Torisgod.

tmurray Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For the sake of everyone in the region, I hope
> this ends well.
> And on a personal note, I'm supposed to be there
> the first week in October....

I don't thik so.AFAIK "Altamont" has been moved to Wyoming.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.

Uncle Joe writes...
<< I don't thik so.AFAIK "Altamont" has been moved to Wyoming.>>

Altamont Railfan weekend will be in Sheridan this year, Oct09/ 10/ 11. But it moves on an annual basis instead of being in one place every year.
Dave in Msla

>
> I witnessed a raging forest fire in northern Idaho
> a few weeks ago, only about 1000 feet from I-90
> near Coeur d'Alene. At night, as well. It was,
> indeed, quite a show. It was insane that the fire
> was so close to the highway. I guess in Idaho and
> Montana, where forest fires are common, the
> firefighters are well-trained enough to allow
> fires to get bracingly close to roads and
> railways.
>
> Tor in Eugene

Same thing with me on last year's MRL trip. A few miles east of Missoula, a low intensity fire had burned right down to the road and actually lit off the dead grass in the median of I 90. The crews had signs out, slowed down traffic but did not close the road. All in a day's work. 

monaddave Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Uncle Joe writes...
> << I don't thik so.AFAIK "Altamont" has been
> moved to Wyoming.>>
>
> Altamont Railfan weekend will be in Sheridan this
> year, Oct09/ 10/ 11. But it moves on an annual
> basis instead of being in one place every year.
> Dave in Msla
When did this start? When I went years ago,it was always at Essex.

Uncle Joe