Bear Den Fire rages in Mandaree

MANDAREE, ND ( KXNET ) — Scorched Earth. That’s what the area around the town of Mandaree looks like as wildfires have ripped through the small community.

According to Mandaree’s Fire Chief, a moderate drought mixed with the significant fuel load of the surrounding wet spring led to a fire this past weekend when winds reached up to 45 miles per hour. The fire was ignited on the outside part of the west side of the reservation, and emergency responders say it’s one of the largest fires they’ve had to fight.

“It turned into a pretty significant event, probably the largest fire that I’ve managed here on the reservation. I’ve been a fire management officer for twenty years and we have had other large fires, but this is the largest wind event I’ve seen,” Mandaree Fire Chief Marle Baker said.

Since Saturday, the Bear Den fire has consumed more than 13,000 acres, and while no injuries or deaths have been reported in this area, the same can’t be said for farmland and property.

“Unfortunately, we did lose one home over on the western edge of the fire,” Baker said. “We were able to keep it North of Mandaree, so no other structures that we know of have been consumed.”

The fire has continued for several days. Firefighters have contained up to 15 percent of it, but the ongoing effort to extinguish it has required a lot of manpower.

“We were able to round up approximately 75 wild land firefighters to come to this incident,” Baker said. “They came from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, the North Dakota Forest Service has really been helping us out with overhead and with engines.”

Baker says that the continued support from the community has kept his department going.

“What this fire has expressed to me is the gratitude or the support that we get from our local community,” Baker said. “You know, a lot of times I’ve gone out to fires in other areas and the local community hasn’t been that active, but I’ve been here working on this reservation for a long time, and this community has really supported us.”

Fire officials in Mandaree expect it to take more than two weeks for the Bear Den Fire to be fully contained.

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