Sand Creek Fire burns over Maverick Mountain, most of resort spared

A moist weather pattern hit Maverick Mountain late last week, but it didn’t arrive in time to save its patrol shack. It did, however, give a break to the folks imperiled by the Sand Creek Fire threatening the ski resort in southwest Montana.

The recurring mid-August rain anomaly, known as the “August Singularity,” dumped a quarter-inch of moisture on the Grasshopper Valley August 13 and kept sprinkling through the weekend, snapping a heat wave and stalling the wildfire’s rampaging growth from earlier in the week. It was enough to give Maverick Mountain co-owner Erik Borge a chance to absorb what had happened to his community.

“These last few days, I just felt like I was being chased,” Borge said on Friday. “Today is the first day things have calmed down and I’m able to take a breath, gain some thoughts back and start to process where we are.”

Borge, who also co-owns Elkhorn Hot Springs Resort with his wife Kristi and other partners, endured several days of unrelenting defense as Sand Creek romped from 1,684 acres on August 6, to 31,652 acres on August 17. On the 11^th, the fire crossed dozer lines defending the summit of Maverick Mountain Ski Area and destroyed the little building volunteer ski patrol members had constructed two years ago.

“The haul rope [on the chairlift] failed in the heat and scattered chairs all over the mountain,” Borge added. “We don’t know what we’re going to do about that. When you have an old lift, you can’t just go to the manufacturer and ask for more chairs.”

But the flames did not reach the base area lodge, or the mass of snow groomers, lift equipment and other gear marshaled in the parking lot. The fire also spared the hot springs’ main and guest buildings. Thursday and Friday’s rain prevented fire managers from getting an updated burn acreage.

“Elkhorn is almost an island of green trees in a sad, black forest,” Borge said. “The fire still is a real threat, but the firefighters on the ground actively working the fire did a heroic job protecting our structures. They had sprinklers and hoses around every structure. It shows how amazing the ground teams are.”

Sand Creek remains by far the largest fire currently active in Montana, with the nearby Bobcat Lakes Fire its only close competitor at 9,892 acres as of August 17. Both fires are under the same Northern Rockies Team 3 incident commander Mike Behrens.

“Given this weather event coming through during the next 24 operating hours, there’s an opportunity now to evaluate how it impacts fire activity,” Josh Baker, public information officer for the Forest Service, said Friday. That includes possible defenses for the Coolidge Ghost Town, a former silver mining operation about four miles northeast of Elkhorn Hot Springs. Besides the ski patrol shack, Baker said no other structures appear to have burned in the valley where about 150 people live.

On Monday, Operations Section Chief Philip Knaub’s update focused on plans to burn out several sections of the Sand Creek perimeter, including the western edges overlooking Highway 278 between Wisdom and Jackson.

“We do not want any sort of ‘dirty burn’ along this,” Knaub said, referring to a post-fire landscape with a mix of burned and burned vegetation at risk of reigniting. “We want a good black edge there.”

The situation around Maverick Mountain and Elkhorn Hot Springs Resort has calmed down enough for some residents to return to their properties, according to the Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Department. However, the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway running through the main fire area remains closed to the public for the next several weeks. The National Weather Service forecasts warmer, drier weather this week as crews continue battling the Sand Creek Fire, which remains at 1 percent containment.

“The main concern for this weekend looks to be dry and continued very warm conditions and increasing fire weather concerns,” reads the NWS forecast discussion for August 17.

Borge said it’s highly unlikely Maverick Mountain will be repaired in time for this coming winter season. And reopening the hot springs depends on how long the fire threatens the byway, which is the main road to the resort. 

“We will rebuild and we will be back,” he said. “I have got to say, unfortunately the ski hill was burned. But we have a strong community, and a fire can’t burn down the community.”