Idaho Rockies fires growing
Two wildfires burning in rugged stretches of pine forest in the Idaho Rockies are still growing, crawling up steep, rocky terrain and, in one case, threatening nearby homes. Near Missoula, wildfires destroyed one house and two outbuildings, according to U.S. Forest Service officials.
Idaho
The Trailhead fire, burning along densely forested slopes near Grandjean, about 10 miles west-southwest of Stanley by air, did not grow substantially on Saturday, said Ed Waldapfel at Sawtooth National Forest headquarters in Twin Falls.
Firefighters were aided overnight by an inversion layer that blanketed the tree line and prevented smoke from rising, and by a fleeting shower late Saturday afternoon.
Crews were gaining the upper hand but continued to face brutal conditions, with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. Walls of flame persisted in steep, dry stands of lodgepole pine, subalpine fir and Douglas fir, Waldapfel said.
The fire is not expected to be contained until Wednesday, but crews are curtailing the spread with aerial water drops, Waldapfel said.
Meanwhile, the Elkhorn fire was burning into steep timber stands in higher elevations northeast of North Fork. The blaze has blackened about 1,000 acres in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
A new fire broke out on Bureau of Land Management grounds six miles northeast of Mountain Home. The Dome fire had burned 750 acres of grassland by Saturday night and the BLM’s Boise District offered no timetable for containment. Crews labored in 104 degree weather, and 21 mph winds whipping across the rangelands.
The Quartz Creek fire was burning four miles north of Yellow Pine in the Payette National Forest.
Payette National Forest officials were also monitoring two lightning-sparked blazes, the 550-acre Lick Creek fire, 17 miles northeast of McCall, and the Dunce fire, 36 miles northeast of Yellow Pine. Both were being allowed to burn freely for forest rejuvenation.
The Dunce fire is approaching a University of Idaho research station and crews have been dispatched to protect the cabin.
Montana
A house and two outbuildings were destroyed in a wildfire 35 miles east of Missoula, a U.S. Forest Service official said Saturday.
“We’ve now confirmed that one residence and two associated outbuildings did burn,” said Wayne Johnson, an information officer with the incident management team fighting the 2,640-acre Packer Gulch fire.
Firefighting and support crews totaling 424 people were assigned to the blaze as of Saturday, assisted by four helicopters and 10 fire engines.
Johnson said he had no thermometer close by, but forecasters had predicted highs near 100 degrees in the area Saturday. The Missoula temperature at mid-afternoon was 96.
Fire crews from Montana and 12 other state are assigned to the Packer Gulch fire. Johnson said firefighters had been dispatched from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington.
Elsewhere in Montana, most of the large fires in the central and eastern part of the state had been contained by Saturday, which means they were surrounded by defensive fire lines and were spreading no further.