Fair visitors drip, but fire crews welcome rain

Rain seethed out of a leaden sky at the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo on Wednesday afternoon.

Still there were smiles.

“I ordered this weather. It’s good for me,” said Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson about the sparse and peaceful crowd.

“I have lived here all my life and I have never had a ride to myself,” said 11-year-old Jessica Parsons, of Hayden.

An unusual moist Pacific storm unleashed a torrent over North Idaho on Wednesday afternoon, dropping more than a third of an inch of rain in just over an hour.

Elsewhere, rain dampened costly forest fires and halted grass field burning. Wheat growers were concerned that what little of their crops remained in fields could be damaged.

“This isn’t a very normal pattern we are seeing right now,” said Jon Fox, senior forecaster for the National Weather Service office northwest of Spokane.

Rainfall amounts varied. Spokane International Airport had about a half an inch on Tuesday and Wednesday. Deer Park saw 1.5 inches. Felts Field had .6 inches; Moses Lake, .4 inches; and Pullman, .13 inches.

So far in August, Spokane has recorded 1.59 inches of rain, making it the sixth rainiest August since record-keeping began in 1881. The record was 2.12 inches of rain in August 1923.

Fox said the forecast calls for decreasing showers through the week with warmer, drier conditions on Saturday and Sunday. Highs Sunday could reach 80 degrees in the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene areas.

The rainfall was welcome at fire lines in north central Washington. “Most of the fires right now should pretty much be history,” said David Widmark, spokesman at the Northwest Fire Coordination Center in Portland.

The 47,470-acre complex of fires at Pot Peak and Sisi Ridge west of Stehekin and Chelan was 85 percent contained. The two-month battle was sparked by lightning and has now cost an estimated $25.6 million

To the south near Leavenworth, the 16,439-acre, human-caused Fischer fire was 95 percent contained. To the north near Winthrop, the lightning-caused Williams Butte Complex fire at 2,088 acres was 50 percent contained.

In all, more than 1,500 firefighters were at the fires Wednesday.

The burning of grass-field stubble was waiting for drier weather in North Idaho.

“I am digging this rain. I hope it lasts,” said Patti Gora, who spends late summers as a watchdog for the clean-air advocates Safe Air For Everyone.

Sherm Takatori, who manages the crop residue program for the Idaho Department of Agriculture, said there are 650 acres of bluegrass stubble left to burn on the Rathdrum Prairie. The remaining acreage could be torched in a single day if conditions dry out, but that will take at least a week, Takatori said.

Wheat growers reported that much of their crop has already been harvested, so they don’t expect extensive losses from dampened grain at risk of sprouting.

“I am thinking we will be all right,” said Ed Hoffman, manager of Reardan Grain Growers in Lincoln County.