Wildfire grows to 10,000 acres
BOISE – A growing wildfire that forced evacuations near the central Idaho community of Stanley had expanded to 10,000 acres by Monday as Idaho firefighters battled at least seven blazes across the state.
About 200 people fought the Valley Road fire, near Stanley in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and more crews were arriving.
A mountain pine beetle infestation has killed many of the region’s lodgepole pines, adding to fire fuels. Still, winds from the southwest were lighter on Monday compared to a day earlier, helping fire crews and air tankers that were dropping retardant on the flames, said Bill Paxton, a spokesman with the Sawtooth National Forest.
“We saw the helicopters working, they’re doing some airtanker drops,” Paxton said, adding that firefighters have installed structure protection around several homes. “The goal was to work the flanks of the fire as it progresses to the northeast.”
No homes have been lost, but about 20 homes in the Fisher Creek development near State Highway 75 were evacuated.
The human-caused blaze started Saturday on private property.
An evacuation center was set up at the Stanley Elementary School, with help from Red Cross personnel from Idaho Falls.
“Most of the people here, it’s a second home, so they’re just sort of hovering around and waiting to see what’s going to happen,” said Anne Parsons, owner of the Fisher Creek Lodge, a five-room guest house near Stanley. “It’s quite emotional, leaving a home, and wondering if you’ll ever see it again.”
Meanwhile, Parsons said she helped make 150 lunches and 150 dinners for hungry firefighters who don’t have enough caterers – because many of those who normally supply meals to fire crews are in Louisiana and other southern states hit by Hurricane Katrina.
Elsewhere in the state, firefighters also battled three new lightning-caused fires on and around the Fort Hall Indian Reservation near Pocatello, in southern Idaho, using tanker aircraft to drop bright red retardant.
The Rattlesnake fire was estimated just over 10,000 acres after being driven across dry grassland by a stiff breeze Sunday. By Monday, however, winds had died and more crews had arrived, said Joanna Wilson, fire information officer at the Eastern Idaho Interagency Fire Center.
“It’s still burning but it’s looking a lot better than it did yesterday,” Wilson said. “We haven’t got the winds like we did yesterday, and obviously we’ve got a lot more crews on it.”
Still, officials with the Shoshone-Bannock tribe asked curious onlookers to clear the region’s rural roads because gawkers were hampering efforts of firefighters to reach the blaze. Three homes were evacuated, but no structures had burned, Wilson said.
The Sawmill fire, also on the reservation, had burned 5,200 acres of hilly terrain by Monday, four times its estimated size on Sunday. The fire is 11 miles east of Fort Hall. And the Juniper fire, burning in remote country 16 miles west of Holbrook, was at 2,500 acres.
To the southwest near Boise, the Gregory fire about two miles southwest of Idaho City had grown to 1,100 acres after expanding northeast and southwest, said Kathleen Geier-Hayes, a Boise National Forest spokeswoman. Geier-Hayes said 260 firefighters had managed to secure an area along State Highway 21 that includes private residences. State Highway 21 reopened to traffic following an 18-hour closure, with pilot car escorts because of fire management activity.
The Greyback Gulch campground south of Idaho City remained closed.
About 25 miles southwest of Mackay, the Wild Horse Fire near the head of Wild Horse Canyon doubled in size to 350 acres. The human-caused blaze was 25 percent contained, according to a release from the Salmon-Challis National Forest on Monday.