Prescribed Burns Due In Forest Fires Planned To Reduce Risk Of Devastating Blaze

Fire could be burning in the Boise National Forest in two weeks as part of a prescribed burn to reduce the risk of a devastating blaze later.

Heavy precipitation this winter translates into expectations of a modest fire season in the mountains.

But the Bureau of Land Management is bracing for another summer of large tracts of brush burning in the desert.

The Boise forest expects to launch its prescribed burn program with a 2,000-acre controlled fire in the Poorman area near Garden Valley.

The blaze will burn brush and seedling trees, to help the ponderosa pine ecosystem withstand wildfire, said Guy Pence, the forest’s staff officer in charge of the fire.

The Boise forest plans another 2,000 acres of burns this year, but could set fires in as many as 16,000 acres if more funding becomes available.

With a deep mountain snowpack, 147 percent of normal in the Boise River Basin, trees and other vegetation will be soaking up water that will keep fuels moist and cool.

“Our sense is this will be a moderate or normal fire season,” Boise National Forest spokesman Frank Carroll said.

But the moisture is a mixed blessing, he said, spurring the growth of fir trees that provide fuel for fire among the more widely-spaced ponderosa pines.

In the desert, the moisture will produce plenty of cheatgrass to fuel fires, said David Vail, operations manager of the BLM’s Lower Snake River District.

He said there is also cheatgrass that did not burn last year, when 438 fires burned 752,000 acres of BLM land in what is believed to be Idaho’s worst rangeland fire season. Southern Idaho may not have another record range fire season, but likely will have a big one, Vail said.