Escape to Wild Horse Island

It’s not every day you board a boat headed for an island to witness controlled burns. And if it is, that island probably isn’t the home of a wild horse, or herds of bighorn sheep and mule deer.

But there I was, about to see the first burns of the year on Wild Horse Island State Park on Flathead Lake. 

It all started with a grant, said Rick Moore, Service Forester for the Kalispell Unit of the State of Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.   

Partnering with the State Parks and Recreation Department to control the bark beetles’ encroachment on the island’s trees and dense strands of Ponderosa Pines’ encroachment on natural prairie lands and seasonal homes, the DNRC had some burning to do.

The grant was arranged by the two departments and Montana’s state entomologist, Amy Gannon.

Having already spent the fall and spring chopping and building piles, there was a narrow window for DNRC to burn the piles before fire season took off.

Member’s of the DNRC Kalispell unit and a few others were the obvious choice for the job, Moore said.

“We have seasonal crews, we have saws, equipment, and expertise so to speak. So it just made sense for the two agencies to work together to help the parks meet their goals on the island and we can help them out as a sister agency,” Moore said. 

So forester Moore gave another journalist and I the necessary hard hat, fire shirt and fire blanket, and Flathead Lake Parks Manager Jerry Sawyer fired up the boat engine.

“Fire’s very unpredictable, and if it were to get away in the process of working with those piles you want the protective equipment. It’s Nomex (the fire shirt) meaning that it will not sustain fire if a spark just lands on it,” Moore said.

As for the hard hat, Moore said, it is to prevent branches from falling on you in the field, among other things.

“Not that a hard hat’s going to save you if a tree falls on your head,” he added.

I made a mental note to steer clear of the trees.

On the ride over, Sawyer and Moore couldn’t help but comment on the weather, which was ideal for boating and burning, just a light breeze. Earlier in the week heavy winds had made burning impossible.

“You should have been here Tuesday morning,” Moore said. “I remember later that day trees were going down. That wind was gusting. I heard it was gusting 75 miles per hour up in Columbia Falls.”

I adjusted my hard hat and studied the heavens.

Upon arrival, ranger Sawyer explained that in addition to all other park management responsibilities, he and fellow ranger Dave Bennetts provide transportation and logistic support for the DNRC crew from the mainland.

“Dave and I are essentially what?” Sawyer asked Moore, “Taxi drivers? Right Rick, we’re the water taxi.”

On a more serious note, he explained that due to the nature of working on the island, he and Bennetts make the calls when it comes to sending a crew out - or bringing it back in.

“In all honesty it makes sense because we’re the ones who’ve been out on the water a lot, because we know the lake. We know the winds, and all the little ins and outs where to take out with emergencies and stuff like that,” Sawyer said. “So that’s understood between the two parties and there’s no problems at all. They work very well together.”

“You guys get along pretty well, then?” I asked. “No fights?”

“No. No fights. To be quite honest this is one of the smoothest interagency operations I’ve ever been involved in and the hard part for me is just doing logistics,” he said.

Sawyer added that since weather is often “horrendous” at this time of year, the crews have made certain preparations.

“If we can’t get them off the island they’re prepared to spend the night,” he said.

I wondered if anyone had packed a sleeping bag for me.

As we made our way to where the DNRC crew was preparing to get down to business, Moore explained that there was just one horse left, after two had recently been found dead, but 150 bighorn sheep and a population of mule deer were thriving.

The island acts as a nursery for the impressive bighorns, which are relocated when the population exceeds their environment, Sawyer said.

The Parks department is looking to purchase more wild horses by auction this summer, he added.

At the piles the DNRC crew, decked out in full gear, was getting their last safety brief before the burning began.

“One thing to remember is there’s only two ways off this island, by boat or by helicopter, so if someone gets hurt there’s going to be a considerable lag time,” forester Bill Glaspey said.

A helicopter landing pad sat behind us, to be used in a life or death situation, Sawyer said.

With that, crew members used canisters of mixed kerosene and gasoline to light a couple of the piles. Regulating the way the flames spread to stay within set boundaries is the name of the game, crew member Ernie Nace said.

The group had five-gallon water containers known as bladder bags on hand in case the flames spread too quickly.

In no time, walls of flames towered around us and smoke billowed like smoke does. I shot photos, dodged the occasional runaway spark and asked the men and women of the crew what it meant to finally light the match after all of the work.

“You finally see the reward of it after you’ve been sawing down trees,” crew member Mike Mineau said. “We’re firefighters and that’s what we like to do is go out and play with fire and make sure it doesn’t get out of control. And take care of it I guess. I love the way the flames dance. I guess that’s the whole point of it. I love it.”

And the elite fire units of the northwest can get the job done safely, Sawyer said.

“These guys,” he said. “I’m not out to blow their horns or anything, but they’re impressive. They know what they’re doing.”  

A 2005 Polson High School graduate, Jamie Poukish was among the firefighters on the scene.

She had an interesting run-in with some of the wildlife.

“Actually the other day we ran across one of the wild horses. Actually - dead. Kind of a rotting carcass,” she said.

Now there is only one.

“That was the second to last one, I guess you could say,” she said.

Besides the wild horses, some of the crew observed the head-butting ritual of the big rams in the fall.

“It’s pretty exciting,” forester Nick Merriman said. “You’re running a saw and you turn around and say, ‘Wow, look at that.’”

Things got pretty hot so I split to the woods to look for animals. I didn’t want my camera to melt - although this may not have been a serious risk. Plus, there were a few trees near the piles and I knew not to trust those.

Climbing up the hills near the burning, it didn’t take long. There were bighorn sheep all around.

Crawling up and over a ridge, I  found myself smack in front of three big rams and a couple females.

Again, I adjusted my hard hat.

The beasts weren’t too shy and I wondered if I was about to participate in a bucking ritual myself.  

I hoped I wasn’t.

I could see the helicopter landing pad in the distance. I wondered how long the chopper would take to get here.

It turns out I wasn’t mauled, much to my surprise. 

It was a wild island, alright, but I didn’t see the last horse standing that day. After casually exploring and taking some pictures, Moore finally retrieved me from the wilderness and we were back on site.

Upon my return, Kalispell Unit Manager Greg Poncin asked if I saw the sheep.

I said I saw them.

“You think those guys are wild animals, you should see these guys in action,” he said.

The crew looked like they wanted some action right then - the burning had slowed - a lot.

“We’re not going to meet our objectives,” Merriman said.

Unfortunately, the trees, sliced just a few months before, were too fresh, so to speak. It meant it was time to call it quits and compose the piles for another day, probably not until fall.

“They’re still too green. We’re thinking we’ll just hold off now. Because they’ll hold heat and if we have a bunch of them lit off we’re going to be sitting here a long time,” Moore said. “We kind of refer to the needles as feathers. So we’re kind of burning the feathers but leaving the bones and stuff and we want to burn it all so we can just come back in here and rehab it.”

It was a frustrating development for the busy crew.

Poncin had been there before.

“I’ve been burned before by burning piles too early,” he said, possibly a man who enjoys a good play on words.

While the crew prepared to put out their piles, they enjoyed lunch and we talked football. Tragically, Mineau, though a brave firefighter, was a Raiders fan. I put in my two cents about the great Denver Broncos, and we were taken back to shore alive and well after all.

For more information about Wild Horse Island State Park visit http://fwp.mt.gov.