Helena community supports Horse Gulch Fire evacuees

On Wednesday, July 17, Brandi Castleberry stood behind the counter of the store at Kim’s Marina & Resort, looking out over the empty room. Just outside the window, a fleet of boats floated idly at the docks. A few more dotted the water beyond. A thick cloud of white smoke hung over Canyon Ferry Lake. The Horse Gulch Fire had just turned a week old.

“Typically we are on a waiting list, fully booked, with everything from RV sites to boat rentals,” resort owner Lukas Jewett said. Jewett estimates that nearly 25% of his annual revenue comes in July. “We did have to, unfortunately, cancel or rebook a lot of our customers over the last couple of weeks,” Jewett said.

The Horse Gulch Fire began a little after 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 9. It spread to Cave Gulch within a day, threatening to cross over into Cavetown, the home of Kim’s Marina. On Thursday, July 11, the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office ordered residents north of Canyon Ferry Road and west of Magpie Gulch to evacuate. Only a handful of campground visitors remained at Kim’s Marina. A vast majority of the staff departed as well, leaving behind only supervisors and owners.

Between the mornings of Thursday, July 11, and Friday, July 12, the fire grew from 1,099 to 7,594 acres. Firefighters wouldn’t begin to contain the fire until Tuesday, July 16.

Relief efforts ran parallel to the fire’s advance. On Wednesday, July 10, the Red Cross opened a shelter at Our Redeemer’s Lutheran Church in Helena.

“We had 12 or 13 volunteers running the shelter,” said Matt Ochsner, the Red Cross communications director for Montana, Idaho, and east Oregon. According to Ochsner, volunteers and staff distributed more than 200 meals and snacks along with 115 bottles of water.

“We also provided information and shoulders to lean on, just emotional support for people who are going through a tough time,” Ochsner said.

“We made friends,” said Trina Johnsten, lead pastor at Our Redeemer’s. “We really just sat and chatted.” Over the course of its five-day existence, the shelter provided 33 overnight stays and housed a handful of pets.

Other pets and livestock found temporary shelter via impromptu community responses. On Facebook, Josh Steed offered the Let Freedom Ring concert space in Helena’s Northwest Valley for “horses or stock” displaced by the fire. In Helena, Animal Tracks Outreach and Alpine Animal Clinic both offered free boarding to evacuees who couldn’t take their animals into their temporary accommodations. The latter hosted four cats and four dogs dropped off by residents of the greater Horse Gulch area.

Individual acts of altruism made up the remainder of the emergency response.

Cameron Johnsey took off work to distribute food from his family’s freezer. With bags of ice supplied by Dave’s Exxon, Johnsey called East Helena’s Missouri River Brewing Company, which had already offered to host evacuees with RVs, to ask if he could set up a distribution site there. Not long after, Johnsey and his family handed out food for roughly six hours.

“It was fabulous to have them here,” said Missouri Brewing Company Owner Adam Hutchinson. “To be able to know that good hospitality, that charitable mentality, is spread and regularly practiced.”

On Sunday, July 14, the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office updated the evacuation order to an evacuation recommendation.

The Horse Gulch Fire is not over. By Thursday, more than 550 fire responders had the 14,250-acre fire 32% contained, according to InciWeb. The Red Cross and community organizers remain at the ready. “We’re prepared to reopen [the shelter] if the conditions on the ground change,” Ochsner said.

But for many area residents, the worst of the fire’s impact has ended, at least for now. Smoke continues to billow from Horse Gulch, the result of controlled burns, but the number of personnel working the fire decreased by 66 in the last 36 hours. No RVs from the Horse Gulch area remained in the Missouri River Brewing Company parking lot Thursday morning. The evacuated animals have left Alpine Animal Clinic. Our Redeemer’s Lutheran Church said goodbye to the last of its temporary residents on Monday.

At Kim’s Marina & Resort, meanwhile, Castleberry and Jewett are still waiting for their summer crowds to return.