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English > Historical Fires > 2000 Fire Season > Highlights
Here's some highlights on the 2000 fire season, separated into General, and two major fires of the season, the Cerro Grande fire and the Valley Complex fire:
- General:
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The 2000 fire season started off early, very early. The first fire was reported in Florida on January 1, 2000.
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The season was predicted to be bad, but not nearly as devastating as it turned out to be. The severity of the fire season was due largely to built-up fuels in the forest, from many years of suppression, and the weather. La Nina, a cool part of the Pacific Ocean, often affects how much the North and South receives (it usually wets down the North, but keeps the South dry), but it started to weaken in 2000, letting the whole country dry out.
When there isn't much moisture in the air, there turns out be a lot of dry lightning storms, or lightning storms that are characterized by only having lightning and wind- no precipitation.
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New Mexico started out as the trouble state (because it is in the South, it was the first to become really dry and hot)- two 40,000 acres burned in February, and an escaped prescribed burn turned into a devastating fire in May (see below for more information on that fire, the Cerro Grande).
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Usually, as the weather changes during the summer, the fires stop in the southern United States, and start in the Northern states, but because of the adverse conditions, large fires persisted in both regions, spreading the firefighting resources thin. People and equipment were brought in from many different countries (such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico), to help fight the fires.
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Fortunately, a weather system moved into the Northwest, dropping off well-needed precipitation into those states. Two weaker weather systems moved through afterwards, wetting down the fires further, putting most of them out, and greatly relieving the firefighters of their duties.
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Cerro Grande Fire:
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The Cerro Grande fire started as a prescribed burn in the Bandelier National Monument, and there has been a lot of controversy as to why it was set in the first place. The people in charge of setting it knew of the bad weather conditions, and of the possiblity of it escaping. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened, and the fire officially became a wildfire on May 5, 2000, and wasn't
contained until June 8. An astounding 235 homes were destroyed, and more than 47,650 acres were burned. The Forest Service actually temporarily restricted prescribed burns while they investigated this fire.
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As a direct result of the Cerro Grande fire, many forest policies were changed, which can be seen in the effects section, here.
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Valley Complex Fire:
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Several Forest Service agencies in western Montana recognized early on that it would be a bad fire year. Everything was dry, and was all shriveled up by early summer. The dry lightning storms started to move through, and sparked many fires. A series of storms from July 12-15 started the bulk of the fires, and accompanying these storms were wind gusts up to 40 miles an hour. The temperature soared to 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit (32-35 degrees Celsius), and the humidity dropped under 20%- perfect fire conditions.
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At this time, the multiple fires in the Valley complex began to grow. The first large fire in this complex, the Little Blue Fire, started on July 13 during the lightning storms. The fire was in a site that was only available to be attacked by helicopter, and the wind started to blow the fire- a day later the fire raced through six miles of forest in only six hours, consuming 5,000 acres of forest. There were many fires that did almost the same thing, and although they were troublesome for the firefighters, they had no comparison of what was to happen on August 6.
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On August 6, as many of the fire grew bigger, many of them were closing in on each other. The fires were creating their own weather, and all of a sudden, with urging from wind that pushed them, many of the fires merged together, into a huge firestorm, that actually jumped a half-mile wide valley in Sula, Montana, and just surprised everyone. The fires were so powerful, everyone, including the firefighters, helicopters, aircraft, and anybody in the area, had to either hole up, or leave. Many Forest Service firefighters had heard about these firestorms, but they had never experienced them. People talked about things just spontaneously combusting: there was a ranch in Sula that had soaked their field, and some round hay bales they had sitting in the field with water, but when the firestorm moved through there, just the heat from the fire, not the fire, dried out the whole field and the haybales, and they finally just caught on fire, and burned into small piles of ashes.
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The firefighters just had to mainly stand back and wait until the rains finally came in September. The Valley Complex, Wilderness Complex, Blodgett Fire, and all of the fires in the Bitterroot National Forest consumed more than 330,000 acres of forest by the time the rains came. This was about 25% of the Bitterroot Forest, including multi-use and wilderness areas (the Bitteroot National Forest is about 1.6 million acres, or 2,500 square miles (4000 square km)), burned by the forest.
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To see the interviews that the ThinkQuest team did of people that experienced the fires of 2000, click here.
© ThinkQuest Team C0119184 :: Credits & Sources
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