Blazes keep state fire crews busy

After containing a wildfire that scorched more than 300 square miles in southwestern Idaho, crews were working up and down the state Thursday on four other fires, the largest of which was at 4,000 acres.

None immediately threatened residences, but the North Hill fire near Bonners Ferry in the northern Idaho Panhandle forced the evacuation of 25 people late Wednesday as crews surrounded four luxury homes on a ridge while flames advanced up the slope through a stand of Ponderosa pines and Douglas fir.

“The crews that fought that fire did a fantastic job in stopping it prior to damaging any of those homes,” Boundary County Disaster Services Coordinator Bob Graham said Thursday. The fire was 50 percent contained Thursday afternoon after burning 108 acres of pine forest.

The Monroe Creek fire on the Payette National Forest was expected to be contained late Thursday after burning 4,000 acres of tall grass north of Weiser in southwestern Idaho.

The Falls Creek fire 25 miles east of Challis in central Idaho had burned at least 125 acres in an area that was inaccessible to ground crews. And the Star Lake fire north of Eden in southern Idaho had been contained Thursday after burning 350 acres.

The increase in fires came as temperatures climbed into the triple digits across much of the state.

The National Weather Service issued a “Red Flag Warning” for a combination of dry lightning, gusty winds and low relative humidity that “will create explosive fire growth potential” across northeastern Nevada, southwestern Idaho, eastern Oregon, southeastern Washington and southwestern Montana through this morning.

Idaho Bureau of Land Management Director K. Lynn Bennett said the southern tier of the state is blanketed with tall grass and other fine fuels that grew heavily during a wet spring and have now dried out – a possible accelerant for wildfires.

“Southern Idaho, like many areas throughout the Great Basin, is experiencing growth of grasses and brushy vegetation on a scale that many of us, and even some like me who have been around awhile, have never seen in our careers,” Bennett said in a statement.

A cause has not been determined for the Clover fire or the Falls Creek fire. The North Hill fire is believed to have been started by a passing train, the Star Lake fire is suspected as human-caused, and the Monroe Creek fire began when part of a bird’s nest touched two power lines.