Rolette County Emergency Manager Cody Mattson reported that while the cause of the fire had not yet been determined Sunday afternoon, the fire got close to the city of Rolla from the south. Mattson said a Rolette County Sheriff’s deputy had reported the fires damaged several power lines, knocking out power and internet for some of the town.

“They’ve evacuated a few residents’ houses just to get out of the area. It’s not affecting any of the structures at this time, but they just want people to get out of the area so the fire trucks and stuff can do their jobs,” Mattson said. “He did mention some of the powerlines did catch on fire. That’s kind of what they were concerned about for the residents in case one of them fell, so they wouldn’t get electrocuted.”

According to the PowerOutage.us database, around 1,400 customers in Rolette County were without power due to the outages. Services were restored by 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Mattson said the response to the Rolette County fires was kickstarted by a call after noon from the North Dakota Watch Center with the National Weather Service.

Wildfires east of Belcourt on the Turtle Mountain Reservation were still burning on Sunday afternoon. A few wildfires started Saturday and continued through Sunday. Photo by Shylow Belgarde.

“What’s kind of nice about this new technology is the National Weather Service monitors hotspots around the state, and anytime they see a hotspot they’ll notify the local emergency manager or the Watch Center,” Mattson said. “What we do is call our dispatch center and get a deputy on scene to verify, and if we can verify there’s a fire there, we’ll dispatch some fire agencies to go and put the fire out. It’s worked to our advantage twice now.”

Mattson said earlier on Sunday the Watch Center had identified a hotspot east of Rolette. A farmer had burned some hay bales four days prior when the fire conditions were still moderate, which had continued to burn into the weekend. The National Weather Service enacted a Red Flag Warning and burn ban over western and central North Dakota after noon on Sunday, reporting wind speeds of 30 mph with gusts up to 40 mph.

“Luckily the farmer did a good job of having fire breaks around the hay bales so nothing was spreading. Sometimes it can take days or weeks for them to finish burning. Suddenly, we got the call about the hotspot south of Rolla, and that was the fire they’re doing right now,” Mattson said. “We’re all about preventing all of these things and that’s kind of a key feature that’s helping us. We can get out there right away and get things done before it spreads too far.”

Mattson said there were seven agencies on the scene addressing the fire, including the Rolla, Rock Lake, St. John, Rolette, Mylo, Munich and Dunseith fire departments. Mattson said the call had also gone out to the Rugby Fire Department.

Mattson said fires had been sparking up in the area throughout the weekend, including 13 fires on Turtle Mountain Reservation lands. According to a release from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa,Tribal Chairman Jamie Azure issued a state of emergency due to the imminent fire danger presented by 13 fires still active Sunday evening, which were unable to be contained due to limited resources. The Belcourt Rural Fire Department response was being supported by fire departments from Bottineau, Rolla, Dunseith, St. John, Rolette, Mylo and units from the North Dakota Forest Service.

Wildfires east of Belcourt on the Turtle Mountain Reservation were still burning on Sunday afternoon. A few wildfires started Saturday and continued through Sunday. Photo by Shylow Belgarde.

“They’re still battling quite a few fires. I just talked with the Tribal Emergency Manager Anita Bloom about a half-hour ago. She was driving in the area of Rolla. She just wanted to check on us. It’s kind of what we do. It’s nice to visit back and forth and see if there’s any resources we can share between the tribal and county government,” Mattson said.

Mattson indicated the crews were containing the fires and said he was hopeful the winds would die down later Sunday evening.

“By nine o’clock tonight the wind is supposed to die down, thankfully, so hopefully we’ll get a little bit of a break and then maybe a couple days with chances for rain in our area. It looks like really warm temperatures through the weekend, so it might be another battle again next weekend,” Mattson said.

Fire causes outages south of New Town

NEW TOWN – A grassfire was also reported south of New Town Sunday afternoon, according to a social media post by the MHA Emergency Operations Center.

Wildfires east of Belcourt on the Turtle Mountain Reservation were still burning on Sunday afternoon. A few wildfires started Saturday and continued through Sunday. Photo by Shylow Belgarde.

The fire was reportedly under control around 2:30 p.m., but jumped the line and began pushing north.

The fire damaged some electric poles, causing outages to about 60 structures in the area of 28th Street Northwest to 30th Street Northwest. The information said power was expected to be restored in a few hours.

As of 4:15 p.m., the fire was not fully contained and was located seven miles south of New Town near Littlefield Bay.

Submitted Photo Damage after a wildfire south of Rolla on Sunday burned through some fields. Photo by Dustin Zupan.