Some Idaho residents holding out against fires
BOISE – For dozens of central Idaho residents whose homes are threatened by wildfires, heeding the instinct to stay behind and protect their property trumps the governor’s advice to clear out.
Gov. Butch Otter has issued an order granting local authorities the discretion to remove residents in and near Yellow Pine, a tiny mountain community near the 88-square-mile Landmark Complex of fires burning in the Boise National Forest.
Despite that order, Valley County Sheriff Patti Bolen says an estimated 37 residents, ranchers and business owners are ignoring warnings from Otter, deputies and federal fire managers that they should evacuate.
“We knew that was going to happen,” Bolen told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “We had a lot of people that wanted to get out and did, but there were those who didn’t want to be part of the convoy out this morning.”
About 25 people left town Tuesday.
Bolen also dispatched two deputies to try to persuade other residents of Yellow Pine and those with homes and businesses along Johnson Creek Road to evacuate. She said another convoy might be organized today if conditions worsen and holdouts have a change of heart.
Yellow Pine is encircled by national forest land, both the Boise and Payette national forests.
Across the state, hundreds of homes were threatened by wildfires that have burned more than 500,000 acres or 781 square miles, the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center said.
Fire agency officials warned that a low pressure system could bring high winds and dry lightning to Idaho late today and Thursday. That could increase the intensity of fires across the region.
Washington
About 180 people in two communities along central Washington’s Lake Chelan were ordered to evacuate Tuesday out of concern that a wildfire could block their only road out.
The Domke Lake Complex has burned about 1,700 acres northwest of Lake Chelan, north of Wenatchee. Residents of Holden Village, a Christian retreat center, and vacation cabins at Lucerne were ordered to leave for fear the fire could block their only access road, the Chelan County sheriff’s office said.
About 300 firefighters and four helicopters were working the blaze, which was burning in steep terrain in the Wenatchee National Forest. The fire was 10 percent contained Tuesday, said fire information officer Mark Morrow.