Husband, Wife Victims Of Grass Fire

A fire near here took a second life Monday.

The victim was the husband of a woman killed Sunday while she and her husband helped neighbors fight a grass fire on a ranch north of Colstrip.

Rosebud County Coroner Bob Beals declined to release the victims’ names Monday afternoon, saying some relatives had not yet been notified.

The woman died at the scene and the husband died early Monday at St. Vincent Hospital in Billings.

Both were caught, along with another man, when the fire got out of hand.

“It was moving fast,” Beals said. “It was changing directions quite rapidly with the wind changes.”

The fire began Saturday night on the McDonald Ranch on Corral Creek north of Colstrip. The two who died were neighboring ranchers.

“When you have such a thing like that, everybody pitches in to get it out,” Beals said.

The injured man, Mike Brady, 50, of Colstrip, was in stable condition at Rosebud Health Care Center in Forsyth, Sheriff Kurt Seward said.

Elsewhere, a fire that was started by a lightning strike Aug. 25 was fanned by high winds this weekend to a 300-acre blaze just south of East Rosebud Lake in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.

The Shepard Mountain Fire had burned to within a half-mile of the lake, and fire officials have engines designed to protect structures stationed near the lake homes, according to Linda Williams, a fire information officer.

Owners of nearby summer homes have been kept informed of the fire’s progress and have been taking precautionary measures, such as watering down the cabins and mowing grass and weeds around them, Williams said.

Many indicated they would be leaving the area Monday, the last day of the Labor Day holiday weekend.

With crews not able to use bulldozers in the steep terrain, dumping water on the fire by helicopter was the only suppression measure being used, Williams said. Hand crews were sent to the scene to help lay hose lines along the front of the fire closest to the cabins.

Williams said the fire could be a long-term one.

“It’s burning hot,” she said. “It’s burned across solid rock that should have stopped it.”

Near Great Falls, winds of up to 30 mph fanned flames from a car fire Sunday afternoon, posing a danger to about 50 homes and several businesses at the southeast corner of the city.

The flames burned about 600 acres of grassland before volunteer firefighters from several area departments stopped it. No structures were burned and nobody was hurt.

“The volunteers really reacted swiftly,” said Cascade County Undersheriff John Strandell.