Firefighting aircraft spread out from Boise

BOISE – Heavy four-engine military tankers and smaller single-engine planes ferried fire retardant from the Boise Airport on Saturday to blazes across the region, including a collection of four fires totaling 12.5 square miles near the unincorporated ranching hamlet of Ola.

The so-called Ola Complex started with lightning strikes late last week and is burning on state and federal land.

“It was reaching the timber line,” said Jessica Gardetto, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman in Boise, just as a C-130 tanker from the California Air National Guard – one of two temporarily stationed in Idaho for the next month, amid high fire danger – flew north for another run.

One of the four fires was showing little activity and was close to being contained, Boise National Forest spokesman Dave Olson said. Three others had at least moderate to high fire activity as winds pushed them eastward through grass, sage and some timber.

A type 2 incident management team trained to manage moderately complex fires arrived Saturday morning, bringing total federal and state crews to about 320 firefighters.

Locals have also pitched in, said Ellen Hampton, manager of the Ola Inn, the town’s only operating business and a source of soda pop, candy and hamburgers for crews camping nearby.

“Every hot-blooded body is out there fighting the fire,” Hampton said. “It’s almost the feeling in the community that if you’re able to fight the fire, it’s a sin to be asleep.”

An evacuation warning for residences north of Ola was lifted Friday and officials opted not to close the Sweet-Ola Highway, which leads about 30 miles into the hills from state Highway 52.

Concerns, however, persisted that if the fires spread, they’ll burn homes, ranches and cabins that dot the remote countryside.

Thirteen large fires were burning in Idaho, the most of any state in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Seven separate Idaho fires started in the past two days, according to the Boise-based firefighting agency.

Montana

Crews Saturday had contained 100 percent of a 4,500-acre wildfire 24 miles northeast of Winnett, and orders for an upper-tier management team were canceled, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said.

The Dovetail fire burned in grass and sage on steep terrain, and torched some trees.

Petroleum County officials canceled a voluntary evacuation notice for some homes and cabins near the Musselshell River.

About 105 people were assigned to the blaze, which had burned about seven square miles.

Elsewhere in Montana, the size of the Gash Creek fire in the Bitterroot National Forest was estimated at 5,100 acres. The fire, with 220 people assigned, was 60 percent contained.

Rain dampened the Red Eagle fire, which has burned along the eastern edge of Glacier National Park and was estimated at 31,818 acres. The fire was 75 percent contained.

Oregon

The combined fires on Mount Hood now cover 500 acres, according to fire officials.

Fires include those in the Mount Hood and Badger Creek Wilderness areas.

The Bluegrass fire is the largest at 450 acres and is expected to spread. And the Gumjuwac fire in the northwest portion of the Badger Creek Wilderness is estimated to be less than 40 acres.

Firefighters were able to make major containment steps on 10 smaller fires and significantly improved containment lines on the majority of the Gumjuwac fire.