Parting Shot: Fires slowed by favorable winds

Firefighters start a back burn along Pine-Featherville Road while battling the more than 140-square-mile Elk Complex fire near Pine on Monday.

BOISE – Fire crews in central Idaho capitalized on favorable winds Tuesday to continue burnout operations around a small mountain community, seeking to push a wildfire toward an area torched by a massive blaze last year.

Ludie Bond, a spokeswoman on the lightning-caused Elk Complex wildfire burning on more than 140 square miles near Pine, said burnout efforts that began Monday evening worked just as planned: consuming dry, flammable vegetation as the wildfire stayed higher on the ridgeline above town. Full story.