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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fire reignites in Stevens County

Staff and Wire Reports The Spokesman-Review

A small wildfire that firefighters contained Monday had rekindled when Stevens County crews checked in on it Tuesday.

They arrived just in time, said Bernie Jones of the state Department of Natural Resources.

The fire grew to 36 acres Tuesday as three helicopters and an airplane helped crews on the ground near Jump Off Joe Lake, in southern Stevens County. Jones said he expected the wildfire to be contained late Tuesday.

No structures were threatened, he said. One firefighter was injured because of an allergy to bee stings. Several people were stung, Jones said.

In Idaho, seventeen large wildfires were burning Tuesday on about 1,300 square miles, including the giant Murphy Complex fire that’s been declared the nation’s No. 1 firefighting priority because it’s threatening grassland that ranchers rely on to feed their cattle.

Still, increased humidity and lower temperatures across Idaho helped most crews make progress on most blazes, many of which likely won’t be snuffed out until rain and snow arrive in October. High temperatures were in the 80s in most areas Tuesday.

The 880-square-mile Murphy fire’s top ranking by the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise means U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials overseeing it can demand more resources, should they be needed quickly. About 730 firefighters are now at the fire on the border with Nevada. The blaze is about 20 percent contained.

“Their (ranchers’) livelihoods are on the line,” said Mark Wilkening, a BLM fire spokesman in Castleford, adding fire managers are also concerned about the fire entering the steep, glaciated canyons of the rugged Jarbidge Wilderness, just to the south in Nevada.

An evacuation order was lifted for the mountain town of Jarbidge, Nev., though residents had been trickling in against fire managers’ orders at least a day earlier.

In north-central Idaho, the East Zone Complex of three fires grew little and was still estimated at about 59 square miles. About 350 firefighters, including some personnel who have been forced to ferry gear up the Salmon River by jetboat due to the region’s inaccessible terrain and few roads, were also aided by favorable weather conditions.

Three cabins on private property along the Salmon River near the communities of Warren and Secash have been destroyed since the blazes were started by lightning last week, but no structures were damaged Tuesday.

To the south, advances by the 17-square-mile Cascade Complex fire near the forest community of Yellowpine were also retarded by increased humidity and continued inversion, where colder air is trapped in a valley.

Still, the Idaho Transportation Department removed vehicles and equipment from the Johnson Creek airstrip northeast of McCall – just in case the flames advance in coming days.

In the Boise National Forest north of the state capital, spokesman Dave Olson said, expected lightning strikes didn’t materialize – good news for firefighters already tackling dozens of smaller blazes started by a storm a week ago.

A pair of firefighters on the 17-square-mile Trapper Ridge fire near Lowman were struck by a falling snag.

They were flown from the forest via helicopter to a hospital in Boise with slight injuries, and released after an examination.

Two fires in west-central Montana were burning in such rough terrain Tuesday that fire crews used explosives to create a fire line on one, while the other was being fought from the air.

The Ahorn fire, burning out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness and into other parts of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, grew by more than 6,000 acres Monday and Tuesday, to a total of 14,900 acres.

Most of the burning happened Monday after an inversion lifted at 2 p.m., said fire information officer Maggie Craig. On Tuesday, winds blew from the west, moving the fire toward Gibson Reservoir to the northeast.

“It was a slower day today,” fire information officer Jean Wiphnell said Tuesday night.

“Humidities were higher, and temperatures were lower. It gave us a greater chance to get in there and get some work done on it.”