Once in a lifetime

John McColgan, the Forest Service firefighter who took this photo Aug. 6 during fires in the Bitterroot Valley, says he "just happened to be in the right place at the right time" with his digital camera.
Photo by JOHN McCOLGAN/U.S. Forest Service

By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian

Mystery solved: Forest Service firefighter captured tragedy with digital camera

It's a jaw-dropping shot. A pair of cow elk stand in river water, backlit by a ball of flame and a hillside engulfed in forest fire.

The public usually isn't allowed that close to that kind of inferno, so the best bet was that some kind of firefighter took the photo.

Most of the fires that close to water this summer occurred in the Bitterroot.

"That's a once-in-a-lifetime look there," McColgan said Thursday from Fairbanks. "I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I've been doing this for 20 years and it ranks in the top three days of fire behavior I've seen."

The day was Aug. 6, the Sunday when several forest fires converged near Sula into a firestorm that overran 100,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes. Temperatures in the flame front were estimated at more than 800 degrees. Nevertheless, McColgan said, the wildlife appeared to be taking the crisis in stride, gathering near the East Fork of the Bitterroot River where it crosses under U.S. Highway 93.