Fires are spreading throughout the Lolo National Forest, to such an extent, that a Type 1 incident management team is being called in this afternoon, Friday, July 21, to manage the growing Lolo Peak fire, which has been coughing smoke up over Missoula.

"It's the complexities of things," said Fire information officer Ted Pettis, "We know that Lolo Peak is going to be high visibility and high public relations, and have quite a bit of stuff going on just by itself. Then our team is out on the other side of Missoula on the Little Hogback fire and logistically, it's been tough to coordinate or do anything."

While the Lolo Peak Fire is one of the most visible fires, the Little Hogback is the largest blaze in the Lolo national forest. Petit says logistics between the fires were a major reason the Type 1 team was called in.

"It's the logistics of us trying to cover the fires... we have the resources, everybody is probably short, but our resources would have to go through Missoula," Pettis said. "Logistically, it just wasn't going to work very well, so we split the fires, so we wouldn't have to have take people driving through Missoula two times a day."

The Lolo Peak fire has grown to nearly 250 acres and is actually one of the smaller fires actively burning. The Sunrise and Goat Creek Fires are both over 400 acres. The Little Hogback fire is far from little, it's at over 2,066 acres.

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