Lots of fires going on. Everything in, around, and leading into and out of Two Medicine is closed.

http://www.nps.gov/glac/upload/8-22-15-closures-web.pdf

I went to a briefing about the Thompson Divide Complex fires last night in Essex. Among lots of other interesting information, they said that the Sheep Fire would normally have about 900 firefighters working it. It has 300. The only reason it has that many is that it threatens critical transportation infrastructure: US Highway 2, the BNSF main line, and a major natural gas pipeline. One member of the audience asked about suppression efforts at the Granite Fire. They said that, due to lack of manpower and resources, they're basically letting it burn.

There are currently about 39,000 firefighters deployed in the Northwest. The strain on resources is so great that the two major commercial food suppliers in the area, FSA and Sysco, have cut them off--not enough supplies in the warehouses.

The immediate weather forecast isn't good. There's a chance of dry lighting storms in a couple of days. No promise of a "season-ending event" for about a month. There was snow above 6000' last Friday, which was lovely.

That said, there is still plenty of hiking in the Park. Lots of backcountry sites available since so many people have canceled plans to come here. Even the front-country campgrounds have plenty of spaces available. As of last night, the only two that were full were Many Glacier and Sprague Creek. In August, that's unheard of.

It's a very interesting time to be in NW Montana.