A warm breeze blows through the Bitterroot Valley, swaying a badminton net in the front yard of a home on the East Fork Road near Sula.
It's a perfect summer day, the kind Montanans dream about in the heart of winter.
But in this rural, spectacular piece of western Montana, the relentless July sun casts a shadow of unease and ignites suppressed fears in longtime residents.
At noon, the temperature at Becki Linderman's house at mile marker 14 climbs toward the day's predicted high of 89 degrees.
She glances nervously into the blackened forest behind her home, at the standing dead trees and brown understory in the timber across the road, and reviews the list of things her family can do to make their home safe from wildfire.
"It's just about this time five years ago when all hell broke loose," Linderman muses. "Yeah, I'm nervous. I'm anxious, but I feel empowered about the measures we have taken to reduce our fire risk.
"When you live near the woods, all you can do is take every precaution to clear ladder fuels and debris from around your property - and pray fires won't come our way again."
Up the narrow Laird Creek drainage, the same breeze topples a charred tree across the road from where five homes burned to the ground on Aug. 6, 2000, on an afternoon when wildlfires tore through 65,000 acres in the Bitterroot Valley with such fierceness and destruction firefighters later dubbed the day "Black Sunday."
Joan Neely waters her garden and checks her hardworking lawn sprinklers. Hummingbirds dive bomb all around, defending their turf at the many feeders she provides.
Neely's home was destroyed on Black Sunday; the next summer, her property was decimated by floods and landslides. But she rebuilt and turned her land into an oasis in the black-stick forest.
These days, Neely diligently follows regional and local weather reports, and keeps careful tabs on fire conditions.
"My heart is here, I just love this place," she explains. "I hope danger is behind us - I hope."
Past Sula, the breeze pushes a thundercloud behind a mountaintop above the Mikesell Ranch at mile marker 9 on Highway 93. Margie Mikesell stops dead in her tracks, fearing the cloud is actually smoke from a wildfire - a plume like the one she saw five years ago, in the hours before her ranch was surrounded by flames and she was forced to spend a sleepless night in her car in the middle of the pasture.
Fear races through her heart and she tells herself whatever happens is God's plan. Lightning earlier in the week prompted her husband, John, to insure this summer's hay crop.
Down valley, the air doesn't move up Rye Creek where Larry Campbell prepares his log and earth house for an annual tour of energy efficient buildings.
He rakes and cleans in the hot quiet, remembering five years ago and how he was doing the exact same thing. Back then, however, cleaning the home he spent a decade building wasn't a matter of pride - it was a desperate measure.
As Campbell stood in the yard with a garden hose and a bucket, the Bear Fire charged toward his life's dream with a deafening roar and unnerving wall of heat. Like Dick White, who lives on West Cow Creek Road near Pinesdale, Campbell marvels at how the unexplainable happened that day to save his treasured home and the life he's built around it.
Amid the stress and tumult of that summer, when 356,000 acres burned in the Bitterroot, miracles happened, White believes. Forever friendships were forged, Campbell says. Unbending resolve was sparked for Mikesell and Neely to tend their homes with renewed commitment and appreciation.
For Linderman, there were untold lessons from those terrifying days when families were evacuated and separated, when courage overcame fear, when strangers pulled together.
Recovery happens slowly, they agree. Healing, they say, happens each time they tell the story of the summer of 2000.
Becki Linderman hopped in her car on the morning of Sunday, Aug. 6, 2000, and headed to Hamilton to pick up more sprinklers. She and her husband, Vern, had been clearing and cleaning around the house, hoping to save their property if wildfires, still miles away, arrived at their doorstep.
Up and down the East Fork Road, the air was thick with smoke and worry. As she headed into town, the one thing Linderman didn't fret about were her two children. Brandee, 14, was staying with a friend whose family lived along Highway 93, and her 17-year-old son, TJ, was staying with a friend in Darby.
They were out of harms way, she thought, as she headed to Quality Supply.
"I had no idea things were just getting crazy up Dickson and Laird Creek and the Conner area," she remembers. "I was just going about my business, but it was hot - really, really hot."
On the return trip home, she could see a huge mushroom cloud of smoke billowing up from the Rye Creek drainage.
"The heat was intense, the hair on my arms was standing up and the air felt electric. I didn't really understand what was going on," she recalls. "Then I got to the Conner turnoff and there was a roadblock.
"I wasn't thinking too much about it. The roadblock had been there, but we had all been allowed to shuffle through. This time, we weren't. Then I saw the mother of my daughter's friend drive up and go straight to the front of the line. She looked panicked, and I realized she had only her son with her. The girls were still at home - by themselves - at the home on mile marker 16."
Tears fill Linderman's eyes when she remembers the fear. "Fires were exploding all around us, no one was being let through the roadblock, and I could hear from the police radios at the roadblock the fire had jumped the road at mile marker 14 and mile marker 20.
"The girls were in the middle of that inferno and there was nothing I could do."
Just as Linderman was about to run the roadblock, an old beater pickup truck emerged from the smoke and fire.
Behind the wheel was an Alaskan firefighter who could see the distress on Linderman's face and the commotion she had whipped up.
When he asked what was happening, Linderman grabbed him and said, "There's two girls up there and they have no way out." Without hesitation, the soot-covered firefighter said he'd go get them, and turned his truck around and went back into the thickening haze.
"It seemed like an eternity waiting for him to come back," Linderman remembers. "Trees were bursting into flame all around us. You could feel this horrible, awful heat rolling from the fire."
"In the terrifying wait, I thought about Vern, who was at home and didn't know any of this was going on. A very nice woman - a stranger - let me use her cell phone to call our house. I caught him just as the power was being turned off. He said he'd head up the road and get our elderly neighbor, and we agreed to meet at his mother's place in Corvallis."
Linderman didn't dare tell Vern about Brandee's predicament.
Radio updates continued blasting dire news, debris fell across the highway and the fire continued its wild course on either side of road.
"I couldn't stand to hear anymore, so I walked away from the roadblock, far enough so I couldn't hear the radios," Linderman said. "Then suddenly, everyone started cheering, and I turned around and saw that old pickup truck coming out of the smoke, heading our way with the girls.
"We hugged and hugged, and I never did get the guy's name. He immediately left and went back to help somebody else."
With Brandee safe and TJ in Darby, Linderman shifted her energies to tracking down Vern, who had gone missing after saying he would pick up their 73-year-old neighbor, Rubin Linder.
A full 24 hours went by before she heard from him. Fire had circled the East Fork Road, forcing Vern and Rubin to spend a sleepless night outside the Sula Clubhouse in the back of Vern's pickup.
Around 1 p.m. Monday, Aug. 7, the family was together again.
"I heard that old Ford pickup with that loud muffler pull up the road, and I just let out this huge sigh of relief," Linderman said.
Vern and Rubin looked shell-shocked and didn't talk much about the firestorm they had witnessed.
At the time, no one knew if fire had destroyed any of the homes on the upper East Fork Road, and it would be days later when the Lindermans learned their home was unharmed.
It didn't matter, the house was the last thing on Becki Linderman's mind.
"At that moment," she says, "I knew nothing was more important than my family."
Living through the summer of 2000 was so profound, it changed her life. Linderman, a former landscape architect, now works with the Darby school system developing educational projects and curriculum that teach people how to be firewise and live safely among forests.
"People have to take responsibility for where they live," she says, "and if you live in the woods, you better darn well do what you can to reduce your fire risks.
"My hope is that through education, by connecting with people, things will improve and we will all live more wisely."
A bolt of lightning started a wildfire on July 31, 2000, two miles from Larry Campbell's home in Rye Creek. For a couple of days, the fire wasn't much of a worry. It was far away and pretty much just puttering along, Campbell kept telling himself.
Then the fire began to run in nearly every direction. Campbell knew firefighters had become overwhelmed with other nearby fires, and jumped into action.
He kept buckets of water, a shovel and a Pulaski on his porch. He raked and cleaned, and began hauling out photographs and irreplaceable paperwork.
On Saturday, Aug. 5, a roaring sound boomed from the south. "It was so loud I thought it was a slurry bomber," Campbell recalls. "But it was the fire itself."
Strange as the noise was, the next day, life up Rye Creek turned surreal.
The Burke Gulch Fire ripped through Darby Lumber lands to the north and started drawing in the Bear Fire, behind Campbell's home, toward it. The Burke Fire burned so hot, it began creating its own windstorm and produced a column of smoke some 25,000 feet high.
Campbell was caught between the two fires, alone at home, desperately trying to save his property.
Within moments of the eruption, about a dozen friends and strangers appeared at Campbell's doorstep - loggers, foresters, conservationists, environmentalists and neighbors - to offer their help.
Shoulder to shoulder, they worked to save the house and haul out more of Campbell's belongings. As the roar of the fire intensified and the heat became unnerving, the Frenchtown Fire Department arrived with a pump and long lengths of fire hose that could reach Campbell's house, about a quarter-mile up the hillside.
"By then, it was so smoky and you could hear the fire coming," Campbell recalls. "We all figured we had about 10 minutes before we had to get out of there.
"All of the sudden, here comes the Bitterroot Hot Shots over the hill on the Forest Service land right behind my house, digging fire line.
"Just as they got there and the Frenchtown Fire Department cranks up the pump, it starts to rain like buckets for 10 to 15 minutes. These big raindrops started coming out of the sky - and this freak rainstorm unleashed.
"You couldn't tell it was going to rain - it was a localized storm that just laid that fire down. The next day, the firefighters said the fireline behind my house was the first anchor on the fire, the first line that held in all of their efforts.
"It was an amazing day, and I was so grateful for everyone's help."
These days, Campbell keeps his surroundings tidy and prepares for the inevitable.
"I've learned much more about fire, and I've learned to empathize with the fear and threat it represents to peoples' homes," he says.
"I believe we need to learn to live with wildfire, the way people who live on the Florida coastline live with hurricanes," Campbell says. "There's no stopping wildfire - it burns over clearcuts, over rivers, over roads - no amount of logging is going to stop it."
"Now when I look across a landscape, I see a mosaic of old fires," Campbell says. "You can see the effects of the fires and how they are meant to play a role in nature and forest health. No amount of money or manpower could effectively accomplish what a fire can do."
Among the healthiest outcomes, Campbell says, is that the friendships forged in the heat of the moment have lasted.
"The thing that sticks with me is that this incredibly diverse group of people came together and worked together for the greater good.
"I have hope that goodwill continues."
Dick White was standing in his driveway with the Pinesdale Fire Department on Monday, Aug. 7, 2000, when the Blodgett Fire blew up and roared north toward his home on West Cow Creek Road.
Firefighters from Victor and Stevensville were there too when a helicopter pilot, flying ahead of the flames radioed below and advised: "Get out of there now."
"You could feel this incredible wave of heat, and see the fire just charging for the house," White remembers. "I thought we were going to lose everything. The fire looked unstoppable."
As the 74-year-old fled the danger, White remembers taking one last look at his house. Flames, some 80 feet high, were just seconds from his fence line and bearing down, "like a jet taking off," White recalls.
"I thought, 'There's no way you're going to have a house left after this,' and I whispered a little prayer. Holy mackerel, you talk about miracles, well I've witnessed one."
Instead of barreling through White's 8 acres and consuming his house, outbuildings, barn, hay supply and everything else, the fire stopped at his fence line 75 feet from the house, split in half and went around everything he owns.
When the danger passed and White could return home and fully assess the damage, he discovered a few fenceposts had burned, a wishing well had vaporized and the paint on his barn had blistered.
That was all.
"It was amazing - I still can't believe it," White says, shaking his head, his voice filled with awe. "I definitely had a little bit of help from above."
Wildfire doesn't concern him much these days, with so much timber burned around him, there's not much left to be a threat.
White worries more about the damage that remains.
"It's so sad to see all those grand trees burned up and left standing there," he says. "When the wind comes up like it has the last few days, you hear those trees crashing to the ground.
"It's a mess up there, and I just know one day somebody is going to get nailed by one of those trees."
With August approaching and hay still to harvest, it's difficult for Margie Mikesell to talk about the summer of 2000. Lightning has been flashing high in the mountains that ring her family's ranch south of Sula, and she is worried.
"To say a 'little worried' is an understatement," Mikesell says. "We don't want a repeat of that summer, and I'm praying we won't."
She wakes each day and tends to chores, hoping hard work will fend off fear - and fire. Her husband, John, takes the same approach, and keeps his mind tied to daily tasks and his heart on the coming of fall.
"Since that year, John hates to see summer come," Mikesell confesses. "Especially when we have a dry spring."
Five years ago on Aug. 4th, the Mikesell ranch was surrounded by fire. The air was so thick with smoke, Margie left the comfort of her house and spent the night in her car in the middle of the pasture. Mesmerized and terrified by the fires burning around her, she didn't get much sleep.
Instead, she watched trees crown with flame and the sky fill with an eerie glow. The next afternoon, her worst fears came true. Came the call from a neighbor: "The fire has just crested the ridge and is headed your way - heads up!"
She phoned the ranger station for help, completely unprepared for the response.
"If you're uncomfortable," he said, "I'd suggest you'd get out."
Mikesell wasn't about to abandon the place where she grew up, and John wasn't about to leave without a fight to the end.
While John revved up a tractor and headed out to dig fireline, Mikesell jumped in the car and took off for the Valley Complex fire camp, two miles up the road.
When she got there, she called out: "Hey, we need help. Fire is coming over the hill, it's headed for our ranch and there's nobody to help," and then jumped back in her car and raced home.
Fifteen minutes later, a crew of firefighters from Pennsylvania and a couple of D-9 Caterpillars arrived. They set up sprinklers around the house, lit a backfire, pushed over trees, dug more fireline and foamed the couple's cabin, "A Li'l Bit of Heaven," which they rent to tourists.
On Sunday, Aug. 6, the fire rolled onto the 220-acre ranch with a fury and forced everyone out, including the Mikesells. As they drove away, all they could see was a wall of fire on both sides of the highway, moving toward their pastures.
At noon Monday, they were allowed a visit home. Dense smoke hung over the property, but through the gray haze they could see their house still stood, the rental cabin survived and nearly 100 tons of just-harvested hay was untouched, 100 yards from the fireline.
It would be weeks later until they knew how many cows they had left; when the count came in, only four cow-calf pairs had been killed by fire.
With pastures burned up and a halt on Forest Service leases, the couple sold all their cattle the following fall.
"It was a horribly miserable winter without them," Mikesell remembers. "So we bought more cattle, a smaller herd this time, and continue to ranch."
While the fire caused some damage - their roof had to be replaced and windows resealed - some of the fire's work became a gift. On the north side of the Mikesell home, flames took a thick stand of pines that once served as a windbreak.
Now the Mikesells can watch the sun set from the house.
"We are more aware of vulnerability and realize how tremendously blessed we have been," Mikesell says. "While we don't want to go through that again, it has strengthened our resolve to be here. Before the fires, we thought we might sell the ranch and do something else.
"But afterwards? We have had no such thoughts. We wouldn't think of selling ever again."
Mikesell believes the ranch was spared for a reason. In the wake of the fires, more and more out-of-town visitors have come to stay at the couple's rental cabin.
The cabin became so popular, they built another.
From Florida, Texas, Washington, New York they have come, thanking the Mikesells for the peace and beauty their ranch offers. Thanking them for renewing their spirits.
"We have become a respite for others, and they are a godsend for us," Mikesell says. "Even right after the fires, people came.
"They would look out at the mountains and instead of seeing black trees, they thought it was beautiful to see the contrasts of color. To me, it
was such a sad sight, but they helped me see the beauty in
it all.
"A lot of things have changed, and I'll never see the forests come back in my lifetime," Mikesell says. "But like every Christmas is different, every year is different. I've learned to love it for what it is.
"And to remember, we have such little control."
Reporter Betsy Cohen can be reached at (406) 523-5253 or at bcohen@missoulian.com.
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