In brief: Officials will let several fires burn

Four lightning-sparked fires are being allowed to burn in the St. Joe Ranger District, allowing fire to fulfill its ecological role in the forest, officials said.

The fires are each one-third of an acre in size. They started late last week, when thunderstorms moved across the southern end of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

The creeping fires will thin out trees and open up meadows for elk habitat, said Chuck Mark, St. Joe River District ranger. Firefighters are monitoring the fires’ size, intensity and smoke output, Mark said. They’ll be extinguished if they pose a threat to human life or property, or burn beyond the ecological goals set by forest officials, he said.

The fires are in remote areas. Three are burning in the Mallard Larkins Pioneer Area. A fourth fire is burning in the upper St. Joe River corridor.

Travelers may see smoke and fire along Forest Service Roads 395 and 320, and Trails 48, 11, 109, 110, 111, and 141. Visitors should watch out for falling logs or rock and erratic fire behavior.

For more information, call the St. Joe Ranger District at (208) 245-2531.

The leader of Panhandle Health District’s Family and Community Health division has been selected to take over as the agency’s director this fall.

Lora Whalen will become director Nov. 3 following the retirement of Jeanne Bock, who has led the district for nine years, a news release said.

The Board of Health unanimously approved the selection of Whalen, 50, at its July 29 meeting after a four-month search. Whalen was chosen from among 26 applicants, five of whom were finalists.

As director, Whalen will oversee public health services in Idaho’s five northern counties. She joined the health district in 2001 to lead the Family and Community Health division, which handles clinical services, the federal Women, Infants and Children program, epidemiology and health promotion services, the release said.

Whalen is an Iowa native who moved to Idaho in 1991 after earning her bachelor’s degree in nursing and Spanish at the University of Iowa and serving in the U.S. Army.

PORTLAND – A federal magistrate judge says a former Oregon Liquor Control Commission inspector accused of masquerading as a long-dead Ohio boy will be allowed to get married in jail.

Finally identified in May as Bulgarian-born Doitchin Krasev, the man recently sought permission to wed in Multnomah County’s Inverness jail. He’s held on a federal charge of falsifying a passport application. He also faces further charges of identity theft in Ohio.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta has given the OK and will permit a minister or other official authorized by the jail to perform the ceremony. Krasev’s bride-to-be hasn’t been identified in court papers. Jail officials say it will be up to her to obtain a marriage license.