Above-average fire season ahead
BOISE – North Idaho and Eastern Washington are likely headed for an above-normal wildfire season this year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
So now is the time for area residents to make “defensible space” around homes in wildfire-prone areas and take other preventive steps, officials warned Monday.
“This whole area has just been really dry,” Rick Ochoa, national fire weather program manager for the fire center, said. That, he said, leads to “above-normal potential” for wildfires. “We’re kind of trending that way.”
Northwestern Montana faces the same conditions, said Ochoa, a fire predictor for the Boise-based center, which coordinates wildland firefighting efforts across the country.
Though 70 percent of Western wildfires are started by lightning, the rest are human-caused – and can be prevented.
“Any fire that can be prevented is a potential savings of resources, property, and/or life,” said Kelly Cardoza, prevention specialist with the Boise National Forest.
Ochoa said wildfires are likely to start in the lower elevations of North Idaho and Eastern Washington by mid-June, and in the mountains by July.
“The main thing right now is to just take advantage of the fact that we’re not in fire season yet,” Ochoa said. “I think now is the perfect opportunity for folks to take a look at their homes and see if they can make that as defensible a space as possible.”
That means removing leaves, brush, and all flammable, dead or dense vegetation within 30 feet of the house, removing dead or low-hanging branches from trees, ensuring that existing vegetation is well-irrigated and spaced, moving firewood at least 30 feet away from the house, and choosing fire-resistant materials for roofing and exterior construction.
“You turn on the TV and see the poor folks in Florida and Georgia dealing with a bad fire season,” Ochoa said. “We’re in good shape right now, but in a few weeks we may be there.”
In Idaho and surrounding areas, a multiyear drought, a dry winter, and a plethora of frost-killed brush in the central part of the state are all signs of impending wildfire problems. Plus, Ochoa said, “We expect to see a hotter and drier than normal summer. … All that adds up to the likelihood of an above-normal fire season. It may be just as bad, if not worse than the season we had last year.”
Bob Narus, fire mitigation specialist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Boise, said, “Our fire season has already started. We’ve had two fires over 100 acres in the last week.”