The fire crept within about a mile (3.2 kilometers) of the eastern edge of the evacuated town of Lame Deer Wednesday night, Northern Cheyenne Tribe spokesperson Angel Becker said. It has spread in multiple directions, torching trees and sending off embers that propelled the flames across the dry landscape. The Montana blaze was primed over the last several days by swirling winds and hot temperatures. The fire has burned 790 square miles (2,000 square kilometers), destroyed about 550 homes and nearly obliterated the town of Greenville last week. Meanwhile, California's Dixie Fire-which started July 13 and is the largest wildfire burning in the nation-threatened a dozen small communities in the northern Sierra Nevada even though its southern end was mostly corralled by fire lines. The Richard Spring fire was threatening hundreds of homes as it burned across the reservation. Rowdy Alexander watches from atop his horse as a hillside burns on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Wednesday, Aug 11, 2021, near Lame Deer, Mont. Particularly hard hit were some ranchers already depending on surplus grass after a fire burned them off their normal pasture last year, she said. If there's no water, there's no good pasture," Small said. "They've got to have pasture where there's water. An extreme drought that's blanketing the West has made matters worse by stunting vegetation untouched by fire. Yet as flames charred mile after mile of rangeland and forest, they could do little to protect cattle pastures that are crucial to economic survival for families on the remote reservation.Īs the fire raged across rugged hills and narrow ravines, tribal member Darlene Small helped her grandson move about 100 head of cattle to a new pasture, only to relocate them twice more as the flames from the Richard Spring fire bore down, she said Thursday. Some ranchers stayed behind to help fight it. On the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, firefighters and local authorities scrambled to save hundreds of homes in the path of a fire that started Sunday and exploded across more than 260 square miles (673 square kilometers) in just a few days, triggering evacuation orders for thousands of people.
0 kommentar(er)
