Two more houses burn in 3,600-acre Montana blaze

MISSOULA, Mont. -- Firefighters found at least two burned houses Sunday in the ashes of a wildfire that surged across more than 3,600 rural acres in two hours and forced hundreds of people to evacuate.

Winds up to 55 mph pushed the fire to 5,200 acres Saturday night.

"All you can do at that point is just get out of the way," said Mike Litterst, a fire information officer.

Litterst said more than 130 homes about nine miles south of Missoula were evacuated, and about 120 others were asked to leave voluntarily. The evacuated areas remained closed Sunday as crews surveyed the burned-over areas for damage.

Erratic winds Saturday night fanned about 24 fires burning more than 200,000 acres in parched forests.

in almost every area of the state.

The flare-ups forced firefighters to shift equipment around to cover more fires, including one west of Billings that they thought was contained.

"This is a pretty desperate thing, to be shuffling crews like this," fire official Scott Vail told residents at a community meeting in the Swan Valley Saturday night.

Vail sent some of his firefighters to Missoula Sunday from the Swan Valley.

Another fire about 20 miles southeast of Missoula grew almost 5,000 acres Saturday and was estimated Sunday at 13,000 acres.

Windy weather also revived a fire east of Big Timber in south-central Montana that firefighters had declared contained just hours earlier.

"Under those conditions, it was: Fire one, Firefighters zero," said Pat McKelvey, a fire information officer.

More than 20 homes were evacuated, McKelvey said.

Elsewhere in the state Sunday, all 50 miles of Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road reopened, and residents on the north end of Lake McDonald were permitted to return home.

Farther south, in Condon, firefighters said a 9,475-acre fire that forced the evacuation of two dozen homes was declared 15 percent contained.

A 100-mile stretch of U.S. 12 into Idaho that was closed by fires in the Bitterroot National Forest in western Montana reopened by Sunday morning. But travelers nearby, just outside Missoula, struggled Sunday to come up with a route around the fires.

"There's fire to the south, north and west, so I'm not real sure what we're going to do," said Bernie Carroll, who was trying to drive home to Oregon. "I guess we'll just get back to a hotel and hang around for another day."