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While air tankers and helicopters offer a measure of excitement, it just takes a lot of hard, hot, dirty work by firefighters on the ground to construct fireline and suppress a fire.

That goes for a fire of any size, including the Black Mountain Fire northwest of Lincoln, Mont., now reported as 76 acres. 

Getting equipment and people ordered, on site, and deployed in the field is a job in itself.  Take something as simple as water for example. You might have to truck in water. If you’re lucky, you might find a river or creek nearby where you can place a portable pump. Then you string out some hose to a portable tank erected on site.  Once you have a full tank, you’re ready to roll out even more hose to get water to the fireline where it will be used to take the heat out of the fire. 

It takes a group of experienced people to make this all happen. A Northern Rockies Type 3 Incident Management Team has been ordered in to take over the Black Mountain Fire. That will move the suppression efforts forward, while giving some local staff members a break so they can regroup and get ready to respond should a new fire be discovered in the area.

As a reminder, a forest closure is in place in order to facilitate firefighting efforts and keep the public out of harm’s way. Area residents and visitors also should be aware of emergency vehicle traffic on area roads and highways.

Even with the pending change in the people managing the fire, information will continue to be updated as needed on the Helena-Lewis and Clark Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HLCNF and on InciWeb at 
https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/mthlf-black-mountain