Grizzly Shows Up At Camp For Montana Wildland Firefighters

A grizzly bear ambled right up to a spike camp for wildland firefighters in western Montana late Thursday. Nobody was mauled; humans and the bear all stayed calm.

People were “just standing there watching him” as the bear apparently foraged leaves from some brush, Josh Heusher told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.

He took video of the bear, which he said was about 50 yards away.

Dinner Time

Bear experts say grizzlies have a keen sense of smell, many times better than that of dogs, so they can pick up tantalizing scents from miles away. It could be that scents emanating from the firefighters’ camp drew the grizzly in.

The bear didn’t seem to be distracted by the presence of a crowd of humans, said Heusher, an equipment contractor assisting with the Windy Rock Fire southwest of Avon, Montana.  

The roughly 6,000-acre fire was ignited by lightning on Aug. 14 in the Hoodoo Mountain wilderness study area.

At about 7:30 p.m., “We were just standing there, waiting for dinner to show up,” Heusher said. "Because we were in a spike camp, they had to truck dinner in."

‘A Big Old Grizzly Bear’

There previously was a “little black bear in the garbage” at the camp, he said.

On Thursday evening, when he heard people saying “there’s a bear over there,” he decided to go take a look.

“I thought I was going to see another little black bear, but it was a big old grizzly bear,” he said.

In the video he took, the bear appears to be completely focused on ripping leaves off some brush.

Pig-Out Time For Bears

This time of year, grizzlies are in a pig-out mode called hyperphagia, gorging on up to 20,000 calories a day as they pack on fat to prepare for winter hibernation.

Grizzlies are omnivores and will eat just about anything they find, and plants make up a significant portion of their diet.

Luckily for the firefighters, the grizzly was satisfied with gobbling some leaves and didn’t try to charge in and steal their dinners.

The incident ended peacefully, Heusher said.

“After a while, he just took off,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.