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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Fri Aug 31, 2012, 04:41 AM Aug 2012

WILDFIRES RAVAGE REMOTE MONTANA INDIAN RESERVATION

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WESTERN_WILDFIRES_RESERVATION_BURNING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-31-03-38-06

ASHLAND, Mont. (AP) -- Ten-year-old Sheldon Limpy kicked through a jumble of burned metal and charred wood, frowning his way through the ruins where his family's house once stood at the edge of Montana's Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.

Somewhere in the ashes were Sheldon's new ceremonial dancing outfit and the teepee his family usually stays in for the Labor Day weekend pow-wow in a nearby town. The items were lost in a June wildfire that witnesses said ripped through as if the land had been doused with gasoline.

"It's hard seeing your kids lose everything. I don't know how to explain it to them," said Sheldon's mother, LuAnna Fox, as she watched him search in vain yet again for something to salvage.

In an epic wildfire season that has destroyed hundreds of homes throughout the West, it's been an especially brutal one for the Northern Cheyenne, 4,500 people on a reservation short on resources and struggling to recover as flames devoured much of their arid land.
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