Sunday 9PM MST
Late Thursday afternoon, motorists noticed something strange along-side Interstate 90 twenty miles west of Missoula. There were several very small fires burning along the borrow pit on the west bond lanes. One driver at 4:45PM called 911 to report the blazes, and barely made it through the increasingly large fires on her way to Spokane, Washington. By 6PM Thursday, Interstate 90 was closed to all traffic, as the fires raged toward the small town of Alberton toward the northeast. Traffic was detoured along the narrow two-lane Montana Route 200 from St. Regis on the west fifty miles to Missoula on the east.
The origin of the fires remain a mystery. Lightning strikes? Arson? Terrorism? Or something as simple as a dragging chain from a tractor trailer rig causing sparks?
More on the flip.
Interstate 90 was closed to all traffic Thursday night, and east and west bound lanes have been closed intermittently since. The major highway passes through a narrow canyon along the Clark Fork River at this point near Alberton, Montana, including a stretch of Class III-IV whitewater popular among boaters in the Northern Rockies. Initial reports confirmed that seventeen small fires on Thursday have merged into a handful of larger blazes today.
It is possible that the small fires may have been caused by something as simple as a flat tire on a big rig, or a dragging chain on a tractor trailer causing sparks in the high grass along the Interstate from the wettest June since 1892 in western Montana, followed by one of the driest Julys on record. Global warming, anyone? Or a drunken arsonist with a cigarette lighter or an actual terrorist with a drip torch could have started the blazes.
Fire-fighters have successfully defended most homes and businesses along the busy transportation corridor, with only one structure lost and no injuries so far. But there are major concerns that a major east-west power line, the Bonneville Power 500KV connector between Colstrip Montana and Seattle could be damaged or destroyed if the blazes continue in the narrow canyon.
This wouldn't have been the first time that a disaster would have closed Interstate 90 at Alberton. In April 1995, days after the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, a Burlington Northern freight train derailed at Alberton, spilling several tons of chlorine gas, killing one person and injuring dozens of others, while closing the major Interstate for several days.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer has been at the forefront nationally calling for the return of national guard troops and equipment from Iraq for the purpose of fighting fires during this fifth year of severe drought in the Northern Rockies. Montana has been one of the top three states percentage wise for deployment of national guardsmen in the Iraq conflict, and Governor Schweitzer's pleas for more troops have been constantly rejected by President Bush and the Pentagon.
Now, Governor Schweitzer's predictions have come true. The Interstate 90 blazes have become the highest priority wildfires in the nation, and the state and the U.S. Forest Service are scrambling to meet the desperate need for firefighters.
As Governor Schweitzer said this afternoon, "If the Bonneville Power transmission line melts today, they will be drinking cold Starbucks coffee tomorrow morning in Seattle."