Hugh Jesse is director of facilities services at the University of Montana, Missoula. He can be reached at hjesse@selway.umt.edu..

Natural disasters come in a variety of forms-earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, forest fires, and other geologic and cosmic events we would like not to think about. In the year 2000, the American West experienced a major fire season that rivaled the 1910 season. Those of you who are not in the West experienced the season through press coverage on the various wild fires. The current total burnt area for the West is in excess of 7 million acres, with Montana's total exceeding 900,000 acres.

Just 40 miles south of the University of Montana's Missoula campus, the Bitterroot Complex consumed over 350,000 acres. The photograph on page 29 is a hillside on fire next to the Bitterroot River south of Hamilton, Montana, which was taken in the Bitterroot Complex Fire on August 6. This day saw several forest fires converge near Sula into a firestorm that overran 100,000 acres and destroyed ten homes. This photo was taken by John McColgan, a fire behavior analyst with the Alaskan Type I Incident Management Team. The photo captures the extent and result of the fires in parts of Montana and the West. The two cow elk are seeking refuge in the river and epitomize feelings here during the summer. John said, "I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I have been doing this for 20 years, and this fire ranks in the top three days of fire behavior I have seen."

The main campus in Missoula was not directly affected by fire. However, there was a 70-acre grass fire on Mount Jumbo only three miles from campus. We also experienced a 900-acre fire called the Schley Fire near Point Six 15 miles from town, which for a while threatened the power lines coming into Missoula. The University of Montana's experimental forest, Lubrecht Forest, experienced three fires started by lightning strikes that were put out before they consumed any significant acreage.

In the Missoula area our fire conditions were extreme as a result of essentially no moisture received in July and August and higher than normal temperatures. Dry summers are not unusual in Montana, but this summer was extreme. We have always had to closely watch the fire danger, as reported by the State's Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and periodically we have to shut down Mount Sentinel, which is adjacent to campus and is a popular hiking attraction. This year, however, it was shut down in the first week of July, almost a month ahead of when the governor of the state shut down state forest lands. This is necessary because if you were hiking on the mountain and a grass fire started below you, there would be no way to outrun it.

The university's preparation for the fire season and response to it can be summarized as monitoring the fire conditions, increasing public awareness, restricting access to hazardous fire zones as necessary, reducing ignition fuel sources, preparing emergency systems, increasing surveillance, and prompt reporting.

This summer, the University of Montana not only shut down Mount Sentinel early on, but later in July we had to shut down Lubrecht Forest, and cancel summer classes held there. Public Safety and the School of Forestry closely followed the Department of Natural Resource and Conservation's fire assessments and made recommendations to the President. Public awareness came from multiple directions, such as extensive signage around the state on fire conditions, elevated news reports, and campus communications. This summer, Facilities Services paid special attention to reducing ignition fuel sources (brush and high grass) around the perimeter of campus and the annually maintained areas. This summer's heat and lack of moisture required us to increase irrigation to keep the lawns green and reduce tree stress.

The campus' emergency systems, primarily our fire protection and sprinkling systems, are backed up in the event of power outages. This is a serious problem in the forested areas because about the time you need the ability to pump water is when those power systems will fail. Emergency systems also include emergency response communications. This spring, not because of a pending fire season, but because of our concern for proper responses and command and control of emergency situations, our campus-service organizations and community-emergency services organizations got together and participated in a couple of table-top exercises. These sessions have been most useful to campus and community services in identifying shortcomings.

In another aspect of preparedness, Campus Public Safety, in conjunction with the city, county, and Department of Natural Resources, spent more time patrolling outlying areas and areas at risk. This increased surveillance and early warning effort obviously helped. However, it did put a strain on other campus-security commitments.

There are a few other interesting aspects of this fire season. This summer the Red Cross contacted the university, and we participated in identifying and reserving space for evacuation shelters on campus. Also, the smoke from the major fires affected the air quality and visibility in the Missoula area numerous days in July and August. Several days we had Stage 2 air alerts in which the smoke density looked like a heavy fog but smelt like burning timber and one day the street lights came on in the early afternoon. This resulted in elevated concerns of employees for their respiratory health, which required us to institute educational sessions with employees on when certain types of strenuous work could be done during these periods. There was also concern with the athletic department on rescheduling women's soccer practices outside of the Missoula area.

One other interesting aspect of this year's fire season was the decisions individuals from campus and the community, who had homes in the outlying areas, made relative to eliminating shrubbery around their homes, severely trim trees and in some instances remove trees from around their homes to increase the survivability of their property in the event of a wildfire.

The Forest Service reported multiple times that only Mother Nature was going to be able to stop these fires. On September 1, a significant weather system moved into the Pacific Northwest and dumped enough rain to increase moisture levels to the point where fires abated. In the last week Montana has started to receive snow, and last weekend, there was significant snowfall in the eastern part of Montana and at the higher elevations.

In closing, this was a very unusual summer with a lot of press coverage on the fires. I am tempted to include a lot of other photos and graphics. However, for those interested, the University of Montana's EOS Education Project's website at http://www.eoscenter.com has a host of photos, graphics, maps, and satellite images of the fire season.