Officials Trying To Pin Blame For Boise Fire

State officials are investigating who should pay for Idaho’s share of the growing bill from the Eighth Street Fire.

The price tag on fighting the Aug. 26 fire and restoring the Boise Foothills has reached $13.45 million. State taxpayers are being hit for $420,000 of the $2.8 million fire suppression effort.

Idaho, Boise and Ada County taxpayers also are responsible for about $1.4 million in rehabilitation costs, the local share of a federal allocation. The remaining $11.63 million will likely come from federal taxpayers.

“If we can determine who caused the fire and if there’s a feeling that somebody was negligent, the state would probably pursue liability, meaning a civil lawsuit or a settlement,” said Deputy State Attorney General Bill von Tagen.

A separate investigation is under way into possible criminal charges against Sherm Fletcher, the Boise police officer shooting fiery M-16 tracer rounds at a Foothills firing range where the blaze apparently started.

City and county officials have not decided whether to seek civil damages to offset their expense, but they are looking to other agencies for help.

The Foothills area burned included 2,120 acres of state Department of Lands property, about 14 percent; 3,160 acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service land; 4,180 acres overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management; and 5,840 acres of private ground.

The state did take action against a Pennsylvania couple blamed for a 1992 fire that burned 6,258 acres near Banks.

The Canyon County prosecutor’s office, conducting the criminal investigation into the Eighth Street Fire, has reached no conclusion.

Authorities said Fletcher, who called to report the blaze, was alone at a firing range when firefighters arrived.

They have sought to distance themselves from Fletcher since then. The city of Boise leases the range four times a year from the Boise Police Association for training. But Fletcher was using an M-16 rifle, not a police weapon, and firing tracer bullets.

“That was not a department shoot,” city attorney Susan Mimura said.

A sergeant in the Idaho National Guard, Fletcher was practicing for a marksmanship competition in Arkansas.

But Maj. Jim Ball said the Idaho National Guard’s staff attorneys have reviewed the incident and determined the guard bears no responsibility in the fire.