Wildfire destroys dozens of houses
Blaze flares again after strong winds start up
HELENA, Mont. — A late-season wildfire that came amid unseasonably warm weather and was pushed by strong winds ripped through a tiny central Montana farming town overnight, burning 24 homes and four grain elevators that had stood for more than a century.
Fire crews were putting out hot spots Thursday, and officials were assessing the damage done by the fire, which burned 20 square miles of prairie and agricultural land before burning into the town of Denton on Wednesday afternoon. The town’s nearly 300 residents evacuated. There were no reports of injuries.
“Rural fire agencies are continuing to work to prevent any further spread or damage,” the Fergus County Sheriff ’s Office posted on Facebook on Thursday. “This work will continue for several more days.”
The fire started late Tuesday north of the town of Stanford, and it was not initially considered a threat to Denton.
Crews had the fire “pretty well put out other than hot spots” by daylight Wednesday, said Brock Linker, a volunteer firefighter. “Pretty much the same time the sun came out the wind started blowing really, really hard.”
The fire flared up again.
“The dirt and the smoke were blowing so bad you couldn’t even see the flamesm and we didn’t even know where the fire was a lot of the time when it was out in the prairie,” Linker said Thursday.
Linker was working near a house close to where the fire had started at midday Wednesday when he got a call saying the fire had moved into Denton after having traveled across at least 6 miles of drought-stricken land.
The grain elevators near the railroad tracks caught fire first, Undersheriff Tracy Lewellyn said.
“The south side is where it really ripped through the houses, all the buildings in town, pretty much straight in line east of town from the elevators,” Linker said.
The power outage caused by the downed power lines that sparked the fire shut off water pumps, leaving the town without water, officials said.
The evacuation order was lifted at noon Thursday, Lewellyn said.
Crews were using skid steers, backhoes and excavators to turn over debris and put out hot spots in town, Linker said.
Montana Highway 81 west of Denton was closed because a bridge was destroyed by the fire. A railroad bridge in the same area was also destroyed.