Lockwood Fire Chief Bill Rash was driving Sen. Jon Tester on a tour of the Ford fire Saturday afternoon when the fire radio in his Suburban squawked.

Tester, Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy and other fire officials tried to keep the Ford fire tour conversation going, Rash said. But the talk got softer.

Soon, the men were quiet as everyone focused on the dispatcher's voice coming across the radio: There was a wildland fire burning near Pictograph Caves.

Minutes after the 3:02 p.m. fire report, Rash pulled off Old Hardin Road and the elected officials got out. The red and blue lights on Rash's rig turned on and he headed to the fire.

By 5:30 p.m. Rash was back in his office, shaking his head over the interesting timing of the fire start and grateful that the flames didn't threaten any structures and that crews were already in mop-up phase, making sure the fire would not flare up again.

The fire burned 61 acres on private land west of Pictograph Cave State Park. The blackened land was visible from the parking lot at the park. Rash said a joint investigation by Lockwood Fire and the Bureau of Land Management determined the fire appeared to be human caused, but had not identified a source early on.

An endurance horse ride wound through the area Saturday with 30- and 50-mile trails on the Kuhlmann Ranch. Rash said he did not want to infer that people from the race were tied to the fire's start. Actually, race organizers had people working the trails with four-wheelers and water. It was one of those crews that saw the fire and tried to suppress it, but could not stop the flames, Rash said.

"There was just too much going on,'' he said.

Yellowstone County Sheriff's deputies controlled traffic on Coburn Road while fire crews responded to the fire. The response included about 40 firefighters with five units from Lockwood, three from Billings fire and five from the BLM and Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. There were also three helicopters, a single-engine and a heavy airtanker.

Some people might think that many resources is over-kill, Rash said, but the quick, heavy initial attack saves money.

"If you don't have resources like that, you could spend days instead of hours,'' he said.

"We kind of pushed the button right away,'' Rash said. "Order early, order heavy, is our attitude so we can get right on those.''

The inter-agency cooperation on this fire -- bringing together resources from various agencies without political barriers -- is typical of what has happened this year, including on the Ford fire, Rash said.

"Everybody helps each other and you can get on it fast,'' he said.

The wind-whipped Ford fire burned 800 acres after it was started by lightning on Aug. 19. It burned two houses and several vehicles and forced the evacuation of dozens of residences.

Tester and others were in the Lockwood area on Saturday to look at the sooty remains of the Ford fire, including a burned house, destroyed car and blackened land up to other houses.

They spoke highly of firefighters' work to hold the fire, sometimes in strong winds and tough terrain, and called it "miraculous" that only two buildings were burned.

"This state owes a great amount of hope and gratitude for the work firefighters have done,'' said Tester who was on his fifth fire tour this summer.

Firefighters are out "bustin' it" on the front lines, Tester said, but people have to give them a chance to be successful by making their land defendable against fire.

"It's time to really plan ahead,'' Tester said.

Tester and Kennedy toured and touted homeowners' work to make "defendable space" on their land. They also announced a $50,000 grant received this week from the BLM to help Yellowstone County residents make their land more fire safe.

The grants require a 25 percent match from the owner, either in cash or labor, for a total of $2,500. Kennedy said there is enough money to help about 72 homeowners across the county -- and there are many places besides Emerald Hills that need attention, he said. However, there is more demand than mitigation money so the county is looking for more funding, he said.

Information and applications about fire mitigation grants are available by calling the county Disaster and Emergency Services department at 256-2775.

The Ford fire was erratic, in part, because of hard winds. Throughout the first night crews were moved from location to location trying to keep the fire in check where they could, Rash said.

A second hard wind came up and pushed the flames, Billings Fire Battalion Chief Tim Bergstrom said. Bergstrom and other Billings firefighters were among the first called to the fire.

"That fire raced up over the hills and out of sight,'' Bergstrom said. "The initial air strikes were really timely. I believe they saved a tremendous amount of firefighting on the ground. The fire immediately went into terrain you couldn't walk in or get water to.''

Mike Dannenberg from the BLM said the planes dropping slurry did a great job, but federal firefighters, especially on the east side of Montana, must always remind themselves that locals carry the weight.

"We know the local resources are our bread and butter,'' Dannenberg said. "Without them we'd just be spitting at something like this.''

'Survivable space'

As Dannenberg and others drove into the Ford fire area, he pointed out wood piles adjacent to buildings and fences attached to houses. Both are ignition sources for buildings, he said. Cedar shakes on houses and nearby trees are other ways to feed a fire, he said.

As the wildland-urban interface has been developed -- rough estimates are 8.5 million houses nationally in the last decade -- fire managers have talked more and more about defendable spaces, Dannenberg said.

"It's time to start talking about survivable spaces,'' said Dannenberg, a mitigation and education specialist with the BLM's Montana/Dakotas fire and aviation division.

Defendable space means there is room around a building for firefighters to work. That is with the assumption that when homeowners have to leave, a fire engine will come in to protect the house.

"If that were the case, where do we find 8.5 million engines?'' he said.

Rather than assume a fire crew will protect a house, people have to have their land ready - survivable - so they can walk away during a fire and believe they have left it in a condition that the fire will move around it, instead of through it, Dannenberg said.

Standing in a driveway off Corral Drive in Emerald Hills, Dannenberg imagined a fire engine coming up the road and pointed to the three houses firefighters would see: Which do they chose to protect? The firefighters go through a "triage" to sort and prioritize structures.

"So you have to pick which house is going to survive and which is not,'' he said.

A house that is survivable is easier for firefighters to protect, he said. Already this season, Dannenberg has been in situations where a fire raged and fire crews were sent to safety zones which happened to be houses with survivable space around them.