Fires burning in Sawtooth, Payette

BOISE – The first major timber fires of Idaho’s summer season were burning Thursday in the rugged mountains of the Sawtooth and Payette national forests, as assessments of wildfire potential rose into the “very high” to “extreme” range across the region.

“The Pacific Northwest, the northern edge of the Great Basin and the Northern Rockies are certainly drying out with this big high-pressure system that’s been sitting over us,” said Tom Wordell, leader of the Predictive Services Unit at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. “The fire danger indices, at least in the Northern Rockies and portions of the Great Basin, are tracking fairly similar to 2000,” one of the busiest fire seasons in recent years when 122,000 wildfires ignited across the West.

But unlike 2000, when crews were already battling large forest fires by this time, higher-altitude timber stands are just now drying out enough to be easily ignited.

In the Sawtooth forest in the Idaho Rockies, more helicopters, air tankers and ground crews were called in Thursday to help on the Trailhead Fire, which had burned at least 250 acres of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine 25 miles northeast of Lowman.

Three single-engine air tankers, two helicopters and three 20-person crews were already working on suppressing the Trailhead, which fire officials believe was human-caused. It was not threatening structures.

In the Payette National Forest, two heavy air tankers, four single-engine air tankers and a helicopter were trying Thursday to douse the Quartz Creek Fire, which had burned 100 acres of timber about six miles from the Salmon Mountains village of Yellow Pine.