With perimeters established around two smaller wildland fires in southeastern Montana, firefighters turned their efforts on Friday to building fire lines around the 18,927-acre Deadman and 11,409-acre McGhee fires burning south of Birney and northeast of Tongue River Reservoir.
“Overall Deadman is looking good,” said Phillip Knaub, operations section chief with the Northern Rockies Team 3 assigned to the blazes, in a morning online briefing. “We hope to be wrapped up with major fire operations in the next shift or two.”
The McGhee fire burning south of Birney had grown to 11,409 acres by Friday morning, July 19.
All of the fires were caused by dry lightning from storms on July 12-13 and are burning in portions of Big Horn and Rosebud counties.
On Thursday, burnout operations from Wall Creek along Tongue River Road to Birney — the western edge of the McGhee fire — was undertaken by the Flathead Hotshot crew. The burnout tied in with a dozer line on the north tip of the fire.
