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Fire season wraps up with new sign

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RONAN – Just as the fire season is winding down, the Confederated Salish Kootenai Division of Fire found time to replace the old fire danger sign on the corner of Main Street and U.S. Highway 93. 

The old sign reached fire danger levels this year that hadn’t been seen in the 30 years it was in use. In the middle of June, the fire rating level went to high, and by the first of July, it was at very high.

“We were five weeks ahead of normal this year,” said Fire Prevention Specialist C.T. Camel. “It was a very dry year.”

Camel said it was lucky that a big fire never spread on the reservation, although that luck didn’t occur by accident. The division of fire and the rural fire departments worked to prevent a disaster. 

“Rural fire departments helped a lot and we had helicopter air attacks,” he said. 

Those efforts were directed at lightning and human-caused fires. 

“On the reservation, 3,500 acres burned from lightning fires,” he said. “Sloan Bridge west of Ronan was the worst. We had 81 acres burn from human-caused fires. The human-caused fires were from a couple grass fires started by cars and some unattended campfires.” 

When the new fire level sign was put up last week, the dial was set to moderate, so the regular open burning season began as planned on Oct. 1.

“It is still dry, so people need to keep being safe,” he said. 

Smokey Bear was repainted on the new sign in brighter colors with the fire danger level dial. The sign was designed by Dan Roullier and set up by the CSKT Division of Fire. The cost for the project was split between Fire Prevention, Tribal Forestry and Tribal Forest Development. 

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