National park icons threatened by wildfires

HELENA, MONT. — Winds wreaked havoc on wildfires that were threatening two crown jewels of the National Park Service on Monday, pushing the flames toward manmade and natural icons in and around Glacier and Yosemite national parks.

The wind-driven fires, combined with high temperatures and dry conditions, have disrupted holiday travel and hampered firefighters across the West during a Labour Day weekend that capped a devastating summer in which an area larger than Rhode Island has burned.

The dozens of fires burning across the West and Canada have blanketed the air with choking smoke from Oregon, where ash fell on the town of Cascade Lakes, to Colorado, where health officials issued an air quality advisory alert.

A fire in Montana’s Glacier National Park emptied the park’s busiest tourist spot as wind gusts drove the blaze toward the doorstep of a century old lodge. The 36-square kilometres fire that consumed a historic Glacier backcountry chalet last week was about a mile away from Lake McDonald Lodge, a 103year-old Swiss chalet-style hotel.

The lodge’s setting on the lake as the Going-to-the-Sun-Road begins its vertigo-inducing climb up the Continental Divide has made it an endearing park symbol for many visitors, and it’s the jumping-off point for hikes, boat rides, horseback riding and tours in old-fashioned buses known as jammers.

Rangers ordered tourists and residents from 55 homes near the lake on Sunday. On Monday, fire crews were told the wind had shifted and gusts were driving the fire down the mountainside.