Fire Levels Montana Town

Late Sunday afternoon, a passing train sparked a wildfire in the small town of Outlook, Montana and high winds drove the flames through the town. Two-hundred people were evacuated. Witnesses say at least 19 buildings, including four grain elevators and the post office, were burned.

"Our Main Street is kind of gone," Colleen Smith said Monday, surveying the smoking ruins of businesses in this tiny northeast Montana farm town.

But no one was killed, and there's no word of any serious injuries, reports Correspondent Tracy Neary of CBS affiliate KTVQ-TV in Billings, Montana.

Spared were two churches and the town bar, the Hub. The lone school survived, though flames came within a few feet.

"It was Halloween, and the little kids were all over town," Helen Rippley said. "There were some on our porch, and I told them the fire was coming and they should get home."

Seven other wildfires blackened eastern Montana on Sunday, many caused by wind-broken power lines that dropped into dry prairie grass, state officials said. By early Monday, they had burned about 90,000 acres and all but one were contained as wind eased.

The wind also blew grass fires across nearly 100,000 acres of North Dakota, 30,000 acres of Wyoming, and scattered areas of South Dakota. Smoke blew as far east as Minnesota.

Outside Overlook, Carl Tange was trying to plow firebreaks when the flames overtook him. They swept by with such speed that he was spared injury.

"I'd say in seconds, it moved a quarter of a mile," he said. "The flames were just shooting. It was throwing balls of fire and cinders at least a quarter of a mile ahead. They'd hit and explode."

Robert Beckers, who farms north of town and watched the fire arrive, said, "It was just a wall of flames coming. It went through town in a matter of minutes."