The Macdonald Pass was on fire Friday, which supposed to be caused by humans. The fire took nearly 24 hours to take over the charge of around 300 acres. The fire fighter teams are still unable to work as fire thunders are very strong and uncontrollable. The fire fighting team is optimistic to get the control over soon. National incident management is also requested to send a 2 type team, which might be taking over on Sunday.
The fire fighting team used around14 brush trucks, 1 tender and half a dozen of engines, over 100 fire fighters are on the location to handle the situation. Air fire vehicles had also been used like four helicopters were sent to calm down the fire a little, but all in vein as they weren’t able to handle the strong and steep fire areas.
The roads have been blocked and only evacuators and locals can use the roads and around 10 houses were in danger potentially on the upper part of Clausen Road.
The emergency has been requested to be declared in the area as the wind has provided more fuel to the fire.
The state of emergency has been declared in the city of Helena, which can help the emergency operation to begin. The evacuation orders are also been allowed if required, but the order are yet to be issued. The residents of Rimini and Colorado gulches have been warned to be ready for the evacuation.
The fire is assumed to be initiated from the top of MacDonald pass, about seven miles away from the City of Helena of highway 12.
The authorities are yet not clear about the root cause and they said the reason is under investigation.
Macdonald Pass Fire
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