HAMILTON, Mont. \u2014 Two lightning-sparked wildfires burning near Hamilton are prompting road closures as firefighters work to take advantage of cooler weather.<\/p>\n
The Butterfly Fire is burning about 12 miles east of Hamilton. It started at 4:28 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2026, and has grown to 50 acres. <\/p>\n
The cause is lightning. A total of 85 personnel are assigned, along with one engine, one helicopter, two hand crews and two dozers.<\/p>\n
The Black Bear Fire is located just east of Forest Road 75 and south of Highway 38, near the Black Bear Campground. It started at 6:03 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2026, and is estimated at 35 acres. <\/p>\n
The cause is lightning. Resources on scene include 15 total personnel, three engines and one initial attack module.<\/p>\n
Officials said cooler weather is creating opportunities for firefighters to make progress on both fires. <\/p>\n
Road closures are in effect for both the Butterfly and Black Bear fires to protect the public and firefighters during suppression operations. <\/p>\n
Closure details are expected by the end of the day Monday, Aug. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMILTON, Mont. \u2014 Two lightning-sparked wildfires burning near Hamilton are prompting road closures as firefighters work to take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-574181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}