Crews gain on fire in lava-flow area

ATOMIC CITY, Idaho – Firefighters battling a 328-square-mile blaze sparked by a lightning strike in eastern Idaho got help Saturday when winds died down.

Three single-engine air tankers continued dropping retardant in the lava-flow area.

“Our eyes in the sky say the fire perimeter around the Aberdeen area is pretty sealed off,” said Jonetta Holt, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, on Saturday afternoon. “The only fire activity they’ve seen is in the lava-flow area 10 miles from Atomic City.”

The fire started Tuesday and quickly burned through thousands of acres of grass and sage.

About 175 personnel had the so-called Crystal fire more than 80 percent contained, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

Holt said it will likely be “a couple of days” before the next weather system moves through eastern Idaho with thunderstorms, so “we think we’re going to seal it off pretty good.”

Eight major fires were burning Saturday in Idaho, down from 15 on Thursday.

More than 500 personnel were still working on the South Fork Complex, a series of fires about 13 miles from McCall, which had burned 25 square miles of forest and was about 10 percent contained. And 538 firefighters were mopping up on the 20-square-mile Potato fire in the Salmon-Challis National Forest. It was 75 percent contained.