Hot Weather and Fire Update from National Weather Service

The two hottest days of the year are on tap, according to Meteorologist Brian Conlin with the National Weather Service Office in Missoula.

"Currently, we have a ridge of high pressure over the area,and it will strengthen over the next day," said Conlin. "The hottest days that we're looking at will be Friday and Saturday. For example, we're forecasting 99 degrees here in Missoula, the mid-90's for the Flathead Valley and then in southwest Montana in some of the higher valleys, it will be in the upper 80's. It will be similar for both days."

Concurrent with the hot weather is a fire raging in Sanders County called the Magpie Rock Fire, with a remarkable atmospheric phenomenon.

"If you looked off to the northwest at sunset on Wednesday, you could see what wer are fairly certain was a Pyrocumulous cloud from that fire," he said. I think that last update from that fire was that it was at about 2,000 acres, and they hadn't really contained it, so with the instability hat we've had, obviously there hasn't been that much wind the last couple of days  with the instability of the atmosphere that has allowed that fire to grow."

There are at least two more small fires burning on the CSKP reservation.