Indian Trail Fire
The Indian Trail Fire burned 4,409 acres in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, in 2009. It was discovered on September 9, 2009, and contained on September 20, 2009. The cause was recorded as human. Incident teams reported 4 structures destroyed.
- Size
- 4,409 acres
- Discovered
- September 9, 2009
- Contained
- September 20, 2009
- Cause
- Human
- Structures destroyed
- 4
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 4,590 acres. Point of origin as reported, 46.965, -111.953.
The record
- Reported final size
- 4,409 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 4,590 acres
- Discovered
- September 9, 2009, 12:10 a.m. local time
- Contained
- September 20, 2009, 12:46 a.m. local time
- Cause
- Human, Undetermined
- State
- Montana
- County
- Lewis and Clark County
- Land ownership at origin
- Private
- Reporting unit
- Central Land Office
- Agency
- State or local agency
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- MTBS fire identifier
- MT4698411193320090909
- MTBS assessment
- Initial
- Fire occurrence record
- SFO-2009-MTCES000075
The three sizes are three measurements: the size the agency reported when the fire was out, the burned area MTBS drew from satellite imagery before and after, and the GIS area inside the final perimeter, unburned islands included. They rarely agree exactly.
From the incident teams’ reports
The status summaries (ICS-209 forms) the incident teams filed: 8, from September 9, 2009 to September 16, 2009. These are the teams’ own estimates, written while the incident was running, and personnel is totaled from the resources each report lists. A fact the reports leave blank is not shown, and a zero on the form is treated as blank.
- Structures destroyed
- 4
- Most structures threatened at once
- 137
- Most personnel assigned
- 354 on September 13, 2009
- Most aircraft assigned
- 6
- People evacuated, at the most
- Evacuations were reported; no count was filed
- Cost reported by the teams
- $2.2 million, in 2009 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Human
- Primary fuel model reported
- Timber (Grass and Understory)
- Suppression strategy reported
- Full suppression
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 1,090 acres, on September 10, 2009.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 9, 2009 | 2,410 | |
| Sep 10, 2009 | 3,500 | +1,090 |
| Sep 11, 2009 | 4,388 | +888 |
| Sep 12, 2009 | 4,388 | 0 |
| Sep 13, 2009 | 4,388 | 0 |
| Sep 14, 2009 | 4,388 | 0 |
| Sep 15, 2009 | 4,388 | 0 |
| Sep 16, 2009 | 4,409 | +21 |
Other large fires in Montana in 20098
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meissner Fire | 14,490 | Jan 31, 2009 | Human |
| Kootenai Creek Fire | 6,990 | Jul 12, 2009 | Natural |
| Table Mountain Fire | 5,280 | Sep 13, 2009 | Natural |
| Gird End Fire | 2,514 | Sep 9, 2009 | Natural |
| Lawrence Mountain Fire | 2,400 | Sep 2, 2009 | Natural |
| Lily Lake Fire | 2,120 | Aug 13, 2009 | Natural |
| Bielenburg Fire | 1,950 | Jul 12, 2009 | Natural |
| Gabe Creek Fire | 1,932 | Jul 30, 2009 | Natural |
Nearby
Sources
Burned areas and ignition dates from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), a program of the US Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service. Fire reports from Short, Karen C. 2022, Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014], 6th Edition, Forest Service Research Data Archive, doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6. Records before 2014 were joined by this site: a fire report to the burned area its MTBS identifier names, a perimeter to the burned area it lies in when the names or the sizes agree. Incident figures from ICS-209-PLUS: St. Denis, Lise A., Karen C. Short, Kathryn McConnell, Maxwell C. Cook, Nathan P. Mietkiewicz, Mollie Buckland and Jennifer K. Balch, 2023, All-hazards dataset mined from the US National Incident Management System 1999-2020, Scientific Data 10, 112, doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-01955-0; data on figshare, doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19858927.v3, licensed CC BY 4.0. This site matched each incident to the fire by the dataset’s own links where it has them, and otherwise by name, start date, state and size, and left out figures too large to be possible for a fire of its size.