Weather has been a driving force behind the Sand Creek wildfire, Montana's largest fire of the year so far. Meteorologist Curtis Grevenitz has more in this week's Weather Wise. The monster Sand Creek wildfire in the Pioneer Mountains of southwest Montana exploded last week as red flag conditions developed. Hot temperatures, low humidity and gusty winds took the fire from the far west side of the Pioneer Mountains all the way across the mountain range. The footprint of the fire shows a large, long swath to the east, a run driven by the wind. At the height of the inferno, the blaze breached dozer lines and the boundary of Maverick Mountain Ski Area. It was at this point the heat and wind created such extreme fire behavior that firefighters had to back out of the area. For an afternoon and a night, the condition of the Maverick Mountain base area and Elkhorn Hot Springs was unknown. The fire was too large to be near, and the smoke plume so thick it shrouded the ground from aircraft. The atmospheric instability produced a large rotating column of smoke where the fire fed itself through rising air and drawing in air at the surface. But mother nature taketh and mother nature giveth. With both Maverick Mountain base area and all of Elkhorn Hot Springs surviving the night in miraculous fashion, a change in the weather brought widespread significant rain and cooler temperatures that has slowed the beast to a crawl allowing firefighters to only recently proactively fight the sand creek wildfire. I'm meteorologist Curtis grevenitz and now you're a little more weatherwise
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