Reynolds Creek Fire tops $8.3 million

Firefighters saw significant progress on the Reynolds Creek Fire in Glacier National Park over the past week.

The cost of suppressing the fire, which is now mapped at 3,913 acres, is now $8.3 million. The fire is now 67 percent contained. Firefighters had a busy week hitting spot fires that escaped to the east and the fire grew in areas to the north in Two Dog Basin, which is high in the Two Dog Creek drainage, in Rose Creek and Baring Creeks.

Last week crews set a burnout behind the Rising Sun Motor Inn and the campground to secure line there. The fire has not moved east toward the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road is closed from Logan Pass on the east side to the St. Mary Campground. Fire was still actively burning near the road inside the fire perimeter and there are numerous hazard trees that still need to be removed.

But some backcountry areas have reopened. The Red Eagle Lake Trail and subsequent campgrounds have reopened. Just two backcountry campgrounds remain closed - Gunsight Lake and Reynolds Creek. All trails in the immediate fire area remain closed and will likely stay closed through the season. The St. Mary Visitor Center is open.

Incident Commander Greg Poncin has been replaced by Chris Young of Grangeville, Idaho. Crews rotate out of fires on a 14-day basis. Young has been working on the fire, took a couple of days off and is now the commander, so he's familiar with the fire and conditions.

The goal is to keep the fire from spreading east and to keep it from potentially slopping over the Rose Creek drainage into Boulder Creek on the Many Glacier side, said fire information officer Mike Cole.

A fire analyst said the likelihood of the fire doing either of those things is very low - about 2 percent - Cole said.

Crews were also going to head into the Rose Creek drainage and would likely wrap up a couple of bridges along the trail to protect them should the fire make a run.

A second structure was burned in the fire - firefighters found the remains of an old cabin near the St. Mary River. It was likely a squatter's cabin that pre-dated the Park. All that was left was a stone wall. The Baring Creek Cabin also burned to the ground.

Crews currently have 71 miles of hose line on the fire and have dumped well over 1 million gallons of water on it. Having St. Mary Lake so close to the fire has proven fortuitous. The number of firefighters has dropped from more than 650 to 471.

The weather this week is expected to be a bit cooler, with highs in the 70s to near 80, though the chance of rain is low.

Thursday could be a trying day - wind gusts could hit 40 mph over the fire.