Fire near Ketchum forces more to flee

KETCHUM, Idaho – Gusty winds stoked a wildfire Tuesday above this central Idaho resort town, pushing flames near the borders of the Sun Valley Resort ski area even as air tankers and helicopters dropping red retardant made passes at five-minute intervals.

The Castle Rock fire was “extremely active,” federal fire managers said. The fire, which has ebbed and flowed around this town and burned more than 64 square miles of spruce, fir and pine trees, leapt to life again Tuesday afternoon, keeping crews busy at their station near a summit lodge.

Amid the smoke, managers opted to leave ski lifts running – not for people, but to keep errant flames from cooking cables that ferry more than 200,000 visitors up the slopes each winter.

Blaine County and Ketchum officials issued a new mandatory evacuation order for residents of homes located west of the Warm Springs Bridge, in the northern part of town. Ketchum has already canceled the traditional Labor Day weekend’s Wagon Days celebration. With the latest evacuation order, about 2,000 homes are affected.

“The good news is fire crews are successfully holding their own at the top,” said Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall, urging a few holdouts in the Warm Springs neighborhood to follow the evacuation order.

The fire started Aug. 17 with a lightning strike, and this is the third wave of evacuations. No structures have burned.

“This latest evacuation order was due to the fire conditions, the burnout operations and the increased possibility for fire spotting,” said Bob Beanblossum, a fire information officer. “The fire activity is still currently outside the ski area boundaries.”

Some of the 60 Idaho Army and Air National Guard soldiers who have been deployed to Ketchum were assisting residents, going door to door in the Warm Springs neighborhood with Blaine County sheriff’s officers.

Some evacuees went to the Blaine County Community Campus, located in Hailey, 12 miles south of Ketchum. By early Tuesday evening, a handful of people had arrived, said Shawn Tolman, the Red Cross of Greater Idaho’s regional director for the eastern half of the state, though there were as many as 44 sleeping at the center on Sunday evening.

Others opted to take shelter in hotels or stay with friends or in empty condominiums owned by family. A wall of smoke greets visitors driving state Highway 75 into the Wood River Valley, where the ski area is located. Many of the nearby mountains are obscured.

Jack Sibbach, a spokesman for Sun Valley Co., which runs the 71-year-old, 510-room resort, said accommodations were roughly 90 percent full, though some guests had cancelled.