‘Challenging’ fire season likely

Idaho and the rest of the Pacific Northwest are primed for an active fire season, according to officials at the National Interagency Fire Center at Boise, who are urging people to take extra care in preventing accidental blazes.

“We are currently facing the most challenging wildfire conditions we’ve seen in Idaho in a long time,” said Dennis Strange, state fire management officer for the Bureau of Land Management. “The Fourth of July holiday is a time when we often see an uptick in human-caused wildfires with lots of people spending time in the outdoors. We really need the public to take all steps possible to prevent human-caused wildfires, because with these conditions, wildfires may spread very quickly and could be very difficult to control.”

Fire officials released a forecast indicating most of the Northwest and Northern Rockies will be at increased risk for wildfire this summer and early fall. A dry spring primed forests and grasslands to accept flames. Recent record-high temperatures have only worsened those conditions.

“Ninety percent of the Western U.S. is in drought,” said Nick Nauslar, of predictive services at the fire center. “Much of this drought has expanded and intensified over the last couple of months.”

He said fuels are as dry now as they normally would be in August or September. The remnants of monsoonal storms in the Desert Southwest are beginning to deliver moisture in the forms of lightning storms to the Northwest and Northern Rockies.

A string of those storms moved through the eastern portions of Oregon and Washington, and across north central Idaho, Wednesday afternoon through Thursday morning, starting dozens of fires. Initial attack crews confirmed at least 23 blazes in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington, and Idaho crews were dispatched to a number of fires, including the 50-acre Sand Creek blaze near the ghost town of Florence about 14 miles northeast of Riggins. More than 85 people were working the blaze Thursday and U.S. Forest Service officials and the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office worked to evacuate campers in the area, according to a news release from the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest.

Lightning storms can send initial attack crews scrambling, but officials at the Interagency Fire Center said humans start far more fires than Mother Nature.

Ben Newburn, director of fire and aviation for the Forest Service at Ogden, Utah, said 9 out of 10 fires are started by people. That was especially true last summer, as people gravitated to outdoor recreation in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Agency personnel observed 342 unattended campfires on the Sawtooth National Forest, 384 on the Boise National Forest and documented more than 100 human-caused fires in northern Idaho.

Campers should check to make sure campfires are permitted at the places they visit this summer and have water and a shovel on hand if they use campfires. Newburn said fires should be attended at all times and be thoroughly doused and stirred before people leave.

“If it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to leave,” he said of wetted coals and ash.

Officials asked people to leave fireworks at home. Josh Harvey, fire management bureau chief for the Idaho Department of Lands, said the use of fireworks is illegal on almost all public lands in the state and in many areas they are illegal to even possess.

“I normally purchase a healthy supply of fireworks,” he said. “This year is different. The extreme heat, the lack of early spring moisture and the stress our grass and brush and forests are feeling right now is causing tinderbox conditions. I won’t celebrate this year with fireworks.”

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.