219,000-Acre Range Fire In Eastern Idaho Snuffed 24 Major Fires Burning In Region With 17,300 Firefighters At Work

A range fire that blackened 219,000 acres of land in eastern Idaho came to end Monday, thanks to the efforts of a firefighting crew that reach 180 people during the weekend.

Forest Service information officer Lynn Ballard said the fire was contained Sunday night, and was expected to be fully controlled 24 hours later.

“It looks pretty good out there,” he said Monday. “It’s pretty black.”

Ballard meant there were few unburned areas within the fire, which could cause the fire to flare up again. “There’s not much left out there,” he said.

Some farm equipment and a haystack were burned, but the fire’s threat was more potential than real. It came within a couple of miles of the boundary of the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory but moved no further.

Ballard said the fire team was pared to about 100 people on Monday.

Elsewhere in the region, the National Interagency Fire Center said 24 major fires were burning, covering 546,099 acres. More than 17,300 firefighters were at work.

In Idaho, the Payette, Nez Perce and Panhandle national forests all had an active fire, but none was over 320 acres. The 200-acre Lakeview fire, one mile from Lakeview, was 20 percent contained but still threatening the community, fire officials said.

The Bridge fire in the Salmon and Challis national forests reached 12,000 acres on Monday.

In western Idaho, the 14,000-acre Eighth Street Fire on the outskirts of Boise was contained Monday morning, and firefighters expect to have it controlled later in the day, according to Julie Thomas of the National Interagency Fire Center.

“The message we are trying to get out now is that we don’t want to start another one,” Thomas said.

Thomas asked the public to stay out of the burned areas. All trails into the Boise forest between Eighth Street and Canyon Road are closed, she said.