PHOTO: Wildfires burning in Montana have exploded in size, triggering evacuations and destroying an unknown number of homes as furious winds stoked the blazes and caused a fire helicopter to crash land, officials said Wednesday.
In the Big Belt Mountains east of Townsend, firefighters pulled back from a fire burning in a heavily-timbered canyon and took refuge in safety zones when the blaze began moving so fast and hot that it became unsafe to try to stop it, said Erin Fryer with the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.
The fire burning in timber and grass in the Deep Creek area grew at least tenfold overnight Tuesday, from less than one square mile (3 square kilometers) to more than three square miles (8 square kilometers).