Weed Eradication Led To Wildfire

A planned burn that ignited the Elba wildfire last week was the climax of three years of plotting the eradication of the noxious weed medusa head, Cassia County’s weed supervisor says.

Fire engines were on hand for the project southeast of Burley, but winds kicked up and blew the flames out of control, Gordon Edwards said.

The fire took most of the medusa head with it - as well as 11,320 acres of forest and range, an abandoned mining structure and a rancher’s haystack. The Forest Service is investigating whether anyone is liable. Firefighting costs alone reached $480,000.

Not all of the weed-plagued area the county intended to burn was blackened by the fire, but flames took out about 80 acres of an 120-acre infestation on private ground, Edwards told county commissioners Tuesday.

Edwards said he was unsure how eradication of medusa head will proceed.