Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana
Sorted by date Results 1 - 3 of 3
On Sept. 15, dry pine needles littered the forest floor, forming a beige blanket over charred soil. Insect chatter echoed through the woods while a woodpecker pounded the trunk of a scorched Douglas fir, scattering chips of charcoal. In mid-July, when the Horse Gulch Fire burned at its most intense, firefighters cut a perimeter along the timberline's edge, just beneath a ridge's saddle. Now, a narrow lane of overturned soil, evidence of firefighting bulldozers, separated blackened earth from...
On July 22, roughly 7.5% of NorthWestern Energy’s Montana customers received a message from the utility company about a potential power shutoff. The warning came both digitally and via mail to 30,000 energy consumers located in or adjacent to heavily forested areas of the state. “Our wildfire specialists have identified your property to be within a high‑risk area,” the email read. “Due to living in a high‑risk wildfire area, we want to help you prepare for service interruptions and public safety power shutoffs.” To many energy consumers, pu...
More frequent wildfires in the West can turn hiking through beautiful, high- elevation country into a dangerous game for hikers. In July, seven friends from Idaho, Colorado, Washington and Montana took off for a week of backpacking in southwestern Montana. Everything went off without a hitch their first night. A rainstorm passed through but it wasn't a big deal. But when they woke up, they saw a plume of smoke rising into the sky. Darren Wilson had anticipated something like this, even before...
