BISMARCK, N.D. — Firefighters have a greater handle on two large wildfires burning in western North Dakota, some of several fires that took off in the high winds and dry conditions over the weekend, killing one man and evacuating hundreds of people from their homes.

As of 10:13 a.m. Tuesday, the 28,434-acre (11,507-hectare) Elkhorn Fire near Grassy Butte was 40% contained, and the 11,746-acre (4,753-hectare) Bear Den Fire near Mandaree was 30% contained, according to the state Department of Emergency Services.

No injuries have been reported in connection with the two fires. Two homes and numerous outbuildings have been lost. Both fires are burning in rugged Badlands terrain in North Dakota’s oilfield.

The two fires were some of six major wildfires from over the weekend in scattered areas of western North Dakota, where dry conditions and wind gusts up to nearly 80 mph (129 kph) spurred the flames. Officials believe downed power lines caused at least some of the fires.

The North Dakota Forest Service logged 33 reported fires over the weekend, amounting to 49,180 acres (19,902 hectares).

That figure does not include the large Ray, Tioga- and Alamo-area fires that merged into one. That fire’s burn perimeter is estimated at 88,000 acres (35,612 hectares), but there could be patches within that area that didn’t burn, a department spokesperson said. That fire is 99% contained. Flareups are still an issue.

Johannes Nicolaas Van Eeden, 26, of South Africa, died from critical injuries resulting from the Ray-area fire, and another person was critically injured, the Williams County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday morning.

More than 100 people evacuated from their homes in the Arnegard and Keene areas Saturday due to fires.

Livestock losses from the fires were not immediately clear. Hundreds of power poles were damaged. Segments of two highways temporarily closed.

Officials expect the fire danger conditions to continue this fall.

The American tourist who was devoured by a shark in Indonesia is believed to have died from a “medical issue” while diving, her friends told The Post Monday — revealing that she was an experienced deep-sea diver who was “really enjoying life.”

Colleen Monfore, a retired mom of two from Holland, Michigan, was enjoying her dream vacation — a seven-week diving tour with her husband Mike — when tragedy struck on Sept. 26, family pal Rick Sass said.

Just a few days into the trip, Monfore, 68, disappeared during a group dive around Pulau Reong island, north of Timor-Leste and off the coast of the Southwest Maluku Regency. Two weeks later, fishermen in Timor-Leste caught the shark — and cut human remains out of its belly more than 70 miles from where she vanished.

Authorities were able to ID Monfore from the body’s fingerprints, according to Sass, a longtime friend who has been in close contact with the family throughout their harrowing ordeal.

“We do not believe this was a shark attack. Mike thinks she suffered some kind of medical issue in the water,” Sass told The Post.

Sass and his wife Kim – who ran a dive shop together for more than 40 years – examined photos from the dive, spoke with Mike at length about the incident and reviewed data from his dive computer.

The friends are adamant Monfore, who Rick Sass said seems to have been separated from the group when rough waters forced them to turn around, was not killed by a shark. She was around 24 feet down and probably had half a tank of air left, he said.

“There was a down current at the turnaround site, but it was manageable,” Kim Sass wrote in a Facebook post. “I’ve easily done 1000+ dive[s] with this gracious woman … I don’t believe it was the environment and certainly not a shark that ended her life.”

Rick Sass added: “They dove massive numbers of trips with us over 30 years. Bali, Philippines, Bikini Atoll, you name it.

“She knew what she was doing.”

Mike Monfore was already an avid diver when he met Colleen in high school in their native state of South Dakota, and she soon too fell in love with the ocean.

They had two kids and, eventually, four grandkids, but they never stopped traveling the world and exploring the seas together. “They were both retired and really enjoying life,” Rick Sass said.

“We used to call her ‘Saint Colleen.’ She was an amazing woman,” he added. “She loved nature and animals. I know she would have never wanted a shark to be blamed for this tragedy.”

He noted that shark attacks against divers are extremely rare. 

“And sharks are not that way. We’ve dove with hammerheads, tiger sharks, bull sharks. You have to give them respect and be cautious, but they won’t just attack you.”

There were only 69 confirmed unprovoked shark bites worldwide last year, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, and 94% of those were on snorkelers, waders, and surfers. The remaining 6% are categorized as “other.”

It’s not yet clear how exactly Colleen Monfore died. Grisly photos from the scene show the shark in question cut open — with human remains in a black wetsuit nearby.

“The shark was caught but it was not in normal health. I thought it had swallowed plastic or a fishing net,” the fisherman said, according to Asia Pacific Press. “It was cut open to find the problem and inside there were the remains of a woman.”

Rick Sass said her husband has been struggling not only with her death but bringing his wife’s remains back home.

“He’s hardly been sleeping at all, partly because he’s up on the phone with Indonesia, which is a 12-hour time difference,” he said. “He’s answering phone calls in the middle of the night, and talking to us during the day, and not just not being able to sleep because of this horrible thing that happened.”

Indonesian authorities said an investigation is underway.

The South Dakota Department of Corrections says it will rebuild three sweat lodges dismantled during a weekslong lockdown at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

The DOC started what it described as a “proactive” lockdown to perform a facility-wide search for contraband on Sept. 15. Last week, the agency sent a press release saying it was transitioning out of lockdown status.

Between announcing the lockdown’s beginning and its end, the DOC sent a news release with photos of alleged contraband, including sharp objects and a mobile wi-fi hotspot. The DOC sent a news release with more photos of alleged contraband Monday evening, in a release calling the lockdown a success.

The agency did not mention the sweat lodges in any of the the releases. 

State prison system puts nearly 1,300 inmates on indefinite lockdown

Late last week, an inmate named Gerald Thin Elk told South Dakota Searchlight that inmates went five days without showers at the start of the lockdown, that most of his unit remained on lockdown after its end was announced, and that the lodges had been dismantled as inmates sat in their cells. 

“They tore all three of them down,” Thin Elk said. 

He’d heard that a Native American medicine man was called in to make sure the lodges were removed respectfully, but “we just hope that nothing bad comes back on those people that handled those.”

DOC spokesman Michael Winder later confirmed via email that the sweat lodges were “disassembled” during the lockdown as part of the contraband search.

“The lodges will be reassembled at a later time with a medicine man to bless them,” Winder said. 

Winder did not answer questions on whether the lodge teardown turned up contraband, what kind of contraband may have been suspected, if a medicine man oversaw the disassembly, or if the DOC has alternative spiritual practice options for Native American inmates.

The Monday news release on contraband found during the lockdown did not indicate where any of the seized items were found.

Right to religion

The constitutional rights of inmates inside institutions are restricted, but the right to practice one’s religion has protections under federal law. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 states that “no government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution.”

A sweat lodge (“inipi” in Lakota) is a domed, ceremonial space. Hot rocks are placed in the center, and participants pour water over them to the sound of drums and songs of prayer. Participants in the purification rite traditionally share a peace pipe, as well. The smoke and steam are said to carry prayers to the creator.

Before the lockdown, there were sweat lodges at the state penitentiary, Jameson Annex and minimum security Unit C. 

Prison families group hopes to push lawmakers, corrections officials to address concerns

Thin Elk said he frequently attended one of the three weekly sweats on the prison grounds in Sioux Falls after spending years using another lodge at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield.

“I’m one of the guys that helped the younger natives in here recenter themselves to try to put them back in touch with their traditional values and their way of life,” Thin Elk said.

The Durfee lodge, which was not affected during the lockdown, is larger than any of the three on the prison grounds in Sioux Falls, Thin Elk said. But the prison lodges are all larger and were regularly filled with more people than any lodge Thin Elk has seen outside the prison walls. 

“It’s not even close,” Thin Elk said.

Thin Elk also expressed concerns about other changes to in-prison religious activity. He pointed to church services that had been offered at 6:30 p.m. Thursday evenings by Lutheran volunteers from various churches through the St. Dysmas ministry group.

The services switched to Wednesday afternoons at 1:30 p.m., then to Wednesday mornings at 8:30 a.m. over the past year. Republican former state Rep. Tim Goodwin, of Rapid City, who is running for a chance to return to Pierre this year, said during an inmate family group’s meeting last month that those changes had become a hassle for volunteers like him.

Thin Elk said the changes, as well as multiple lockdowns this year, have made it harder for inmates to practice their religion. 

“It’s made things very complicated in here,” Thin Elk said. 

Reaction from ACLU, Corrections Commission leader

Samantha Chapman, advocacy manager of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, said in a statement that religious freedom behind prison walls is a right that should not be fooled with lightly. Courts have regularly shot down policy-based denials of religious freedom in prisons.

Chapman also noted that Native Americans make up 9% of South Dakota’s population but more than a third of its inmate population. According to the DOC’s 2023 Annual Statistical Report, 38% of male inmates imprisoned on a current charge and 47% of male inmates house for parole violations are Native American.

Particularly given that disparity, Chapman noted, the significance of tearing down a place of worship for Native American inmates “cannot be overstated.” 

“Oftentimes, an individual’s connections to their religious and cultural community may be their only source of hope while in prison,” Chapman wrote. “For incarcerated Native Americans, ceremonies like inipi sweats are a critical point of access to not just their spiritual practices, but also to their cultural identities.”

State Sen. Shawn Bordeaux, D-Mission, was recently elected president of the state Corrections Commission. He said he was troubled to hear about the situation, which Thin Elk reached out to him about, but was told by DOC that the lodges will be built back.

“I was kind of taken aback,” Bordeaux said. “At first, I was a little perturbed to hear that they had done this, and I thought ‘there’s got to be a more appropriate way of going through and checking things,’” Bordeaux said. 

He doesn’t have a clear understanding of the DOC’s goals, he said, nor of what kinds of contraband the agency may have been searching for that would have necessitated a full takedown of the lodges. He wants to know if the lodges have ever been taken down in similar situations.

“For me, I don’t know what all the protocols are,” Bordeaux said. “I want to know what they did, how they were doing it and what they’ve done in the past.”