In brief: Scout was killed while rolling log

LILLIWAUP, Wash. – A 12-year-old Washington boy on a Boy Scout trip died after a log that he and his friends were pushing down a hill caught his jacket and rolled over him.

The Kitsap Sun reported that the boy and three friends were trying to roll the log down a rocky slope Saturday into Lena Lake in the Olympic National Forest, across Puget Sound from Seattle.

Initial reports had said a tree had fallen on him.

Jefferson County sheriff’s Deputy Joe Nole said the victim was on a Boy Scout trip with nine other boys, including his 14-year-old brother, and four adults, one of them his father.

Nole said the victim’s brother stayed with him while the other boys ran to get help from the adults.

911 call leads police to fire, dead man

EUGENE – Police said they’re investigating after a 27-year-old man was found dead in a Eugene home, after reports of a fire and possible shots fired.

Someone called 911 just before 7 a.m. Sunday to report the fire and possible shots. Police and firefighters arrived to find Tyler Wayne Alexander, of Springfield, dead. They put out the fire, and notifications went out to nearby residents warning them to stay inside.

Police said Alexander did not live in the home. No one else was injured and there were no suspects. The medical examiner was expected to determine the manner and cause of death.

Alexander’s father, Dennis Alexander, told the Register-Guard his son “never hurt anybody or himself.”

Late precipitation cheers irrigators

BOISE – Officials from irrigation districts in southwestern Idaho said the state’s water supply outlook is improving thanks to a series of snowstorms and rainstorms that hit the region in March and April.

Numbers from the Natural Resources Conservation Service show March precipitation was 163 percent of normal in the Boise basin. Reservoir storage on the Boise system was 107 percent of average and 64 percent of capacity on April 1.

“This last bunch of storms we got kind of sealed the deal for us. It’s going to be a good irrigation season,” Alan Newbill, chairman of the Pioneer Irrigation District’s board of directors, told the Capital Press.

Last year, many irrigation districts in the Boise region had to stop delivering water about a month early because of a water shortage.