Scotty Brown Fire Contained After Threatening Nearby Structures

After a week-long closure due to the Scotty Brown Wildland Fire, DNRC spokesman Jordan Koppen has good news for those that want to travel down the River Junction Road."We have opened the road to River Junction over by the Scotty Brown Bridge in between Clear Water Junction and Ovando," Koppen said. "We have done really good work on the fire and it is put on patrol at this time. It is fully suppressed and fully contained. We should be good to go in that area."

The Scotty Brown Wildland fire was started by lightning during the windy thunderstorms that hit Missoula last week. After igniting on Monday, the blaze quickly grew to 23 acres.

"It was just one of those things where we didn't want to take any chances and a couple structures were threatened," Koppen said. "We just wanted to make that progress and we just wanted to shut down all roads just in case something did happen. There's a couple garages, cabins, and homes that people live in year round."

According to Koppen, the fire came as close as a half mile away from homes.