Idaho wildfire season worst since 1926

BOISE – Fire conditions in Idaho are the worst they’ve been since 1926, the state forester reports, and things are only looking to get worse.

In the past week, the state’s estimate of its firefighting costs for the season has jumped by $10 million to roughly $25 million, said state Forester David Groeschl. The number of major fires requiring incident management teams on lands that Idaho Department of Lands protects has increased from four to 12.

“We have a lot of fire season ahead of us, and those numbers will continue to change quickly,” Groeschl said.

He briefed the state’s top elected officials on the Idaho Land Board on the situation on Tuesday, days after dozens of homes burned in a raging wildfire near Kamiah in north-central Idaho.

A week ago, Groeschl said, 2,400 acres had burned on state-protected lands; now it’s 89,000 acres.

“When we look back at records, looking back at weather condition records and trying to find a year that is similar to this, we had to go back to 1926,” Groeschl said. “This is an unprecedented fire season.” The Clearwater Complex, which includes the Kamiah-area fire and other large blazes in the region, was about 25 percent contained as of Tuesday.

The current cost estimate for the Clearwater Complex fires is $7.5 million, but that’s likely to change.