Lightning has been keeping firefighters busy all over the northwest the past few days. Hamilton firefighters responded to two blazes that started late Tuesday, August 4, and continue to burn in the Sapphire Mountains.

"The larger fire, the Mountain House Fire is 31 acres and it is 100 percent contained," Bitterroot National Forest Information Officer Joni Lubke said. "The smaller one called Saint Clair they are guessing it could be about 5 acres right now, but they are still trying to get line around it so they still don't have an estimate on how big it is."

Lubke says recent weather has actually been helpful, the terrain is causing most of the difficulties.

"It's a little windy, but we are getting a little precip here in Hamilton," Lubke said. "We are getting a lot more here in the valley floor than they are at the fire. Up at the fire, they have only been getting scattered sprinkles so it's not really too big of an impact on them now. The biggest concern with the Saint Clair Fire is that it's on a 90 percent slope, so pretty steep for the firefighters to get around it."

So far, firefighters have responded to 24 fires in the Bitterroot National Forest. These two new fires are actually the largest so far this year as all of the rest have been kept to under two acres.

 

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