Six large wildfires burning in Idaho; more help on way

BOISE – Six large fires burning in Idaho have scorched about 168 square miles, the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center reported Wednesday, and more firefighters are heading to the state.

At 81 square miles, the lightning-caused Black Pine 2 Fire near Malta in southern Idaho, burning through grass, sagebrush, pinyon and juniper, is the largest fire in the state.

It had grown about 11 square miles since Tuesday and was about 40 percent contained.

About 230 firefighters were fighting the blaze Wednesday, with 130 more were expected from 13 other states, including as far away as New Jersey, said Terina Mullen, a fire information officer with the Bureau of Land Management.

“The winds here are pretty squirrelly,” she said. “Thirty to 35 miles per hour, that makes it difficult.”

She said no structures had been destroyed in the blaze.

With fires igniting around the West in the last week, the fire center on Monday upped its preparedness to level 4, an increase of two levels since Friday and one step below the fire center’s highest level.

“We got that lightning on Saturday and the whole West sort of took off,” said Rose Davis, a spokeswoman at the center.

That has left some fire managers in Idaho scrambling for resources.

“Right now it’s hard to get resources because there are so many fires going on in the West,” said Jessica Gardetto, public information officer with the BLM based in Boise. “Everybody is asking for resources.”

The Tongue Complex Fire, a combination of three fires, has burned about 28 square miles of sage and grassland about 45 miles south of Silver City.

It’s burning through juniper, sagebrush and grass and is about 5 percent contained.

Gardetto said about 14 firefighters were on the fire, much of it burning in a wilderness study area.

She said it was a low priority to receive more resources as few structures are in the area, though the fire has destroyed two historic cabins.

“It’s in really steep, remote country,” Gardetto said.

The nearby Boulder Creek Fire, caused by lightning, has grown to about 10 square miles, but Gardetto said more firefighters were on their way and expected there would be about 200 available soon. The fire was about 50 percent contained.

“That one we have gotten more resources,” she said. “It’s threatening a lot more private homes. It just has much more potential. That one we really are aggressively suppressing.”

New was the Basin Fire in the Salmon-Challis National Forest about seven miles northeast of Stanley. The 150-acre blaze was 10 percent contained.

As a precaution, Salmon River Electric temporarily cut power for a short time to the town early Wednesday morning when it appeared the fire might reach power lines, but that didn’t happen.

Kent Fuellenbach, public information officer for the Salmon-Challis National Forest, said the fire started in a campground, but he didn’t know if it was human-caused.

Crews managed to contain the 37-square-mile Warm Springs Fire near Weiser by Wednesday evening. Crews planned to continue to monitor the fire today, information officer Karen Semple said, but some firefighters will be released to work elsewhere. The fire, caused by lightning, has burned through grassland and brush in the Payette National Forest in western Idaho.

The Jim Sage Fire about eight miles southwest of Malta was 80 percent contained, having burned about 8 square miles of grass and brush.