Firefighters battle 462 acre blaze near Whitehall
JEFFERSON COUNTY
By 
On Saturday around 2:30 in the afternoon a wildfire was reported in the Bull Mountains just north of Whitehall.
"By 8 o'clock this morning the mapping that we had on it looked to be about 460-some acres. So it just got up and moved really fast yesterday," said Peri Suenram, the acting District Ranger for Butte and Jefferson Districts.
A red flag warning, which means high winds, was given from noon until 9 p.m. Sunday evening. Those windy conditions have helped to rapidly spread the fire.
"That's when you really get into kind of dicey safety situations, so we're really paying attention to that as we move through the day to day. All of the people in the fire have been briefed about the red flag warning," Suenram said.
And while officials say they have the wildfire mostly contained, they say it's extremely rare for something like this to happen in June.
"This is very rare for us to have a fire this large in June. Usually fires on this forest start at the end of July. And because of that a lot of our resources are sent off helping other states; Colorado, Wyoming, Utah," said Suenram.
Over 60 people are working to put the fire out, including some from the Chief Mountain and Lolo Hot Shots.
Officials say that while a lot of land has been destroyed and no one has been evacuated.
"Thankfully it is just burning on private and national forest lands that there are no structures that are currently threatened," Suenram said.