Birthday Fire sparks up
|
|
September 12, 2011 |
 A
fire that began in a thunderstorm August 30
sparked up Sunday, September 11, after several
feeble fits and starts, and this evening, a U.S.
Forest Service incident command team is on hand
to take over management of the 600-acre fire
high up the Smith Creek drainage about 20 miles
north of Bonners Ferry.
At noon today, U.S. Forest Service officials
held a briefing on the Birthday Fire, with all
players in attendance, including Boundary
County, the City of Bonners Ferry, the Idaho
Department of Lands, the Kootenai Tribe, the
Sheriff's Office, Idaho State Police and more in
attendance.
The fire, the tinder soaked by the rain that
accompanied the August 30 storm, smoldered until
Monday, September 5, when a citizen noticed
smoke and called it in at about 3:30 p.m. A
ground crew went up found about half an acre
affected, and put water on it, containing the
perimeter. "Eyes on" observation at 7:30 a.m.
Sunday found that the creeping fire had grown to
about 51 acres despite several water drops ... a
short time later, the fire took off, torching
and spotting despite calm winds and growing
rapidly in size.
Bonners Ferry Forest Service firefighter Wendy
Kucera was appointed incident commander of the
ground effort, but steep, rugged terrain kept
her crew battling a small area of the fringe,
with the main attack coming from the air. On
Sunday, three helicopters were dumping water on
the blaze, though one suffered mechanical
problems and was taken out of the fight. Despite
the difficulties, the spread of the fire was
slowed significantly, and private property on
two sides of the fire area and Idaho Department
of Lands ground on the other have been singed,
but not burned.
USFS officials set a priority of keeping the
fire out of those grounds; calling for full
suppression efforts, commensurate with
firefighter saftey, should the fire encroach.
The assumption of command by an incident command
team makes available a few more resources,
should they be needed, including a "Hot Shot"
team of smoke jumpers currently working in the
Kellogg, Idaho, area.
In the interest of public safety, Forest Service
officials announced today that they were in the
process of having the area around the fire,
including parts of the Smith Lake Trail, closed
to public access, and in the meantime, they're
asking hunters, hikers and sightseers to
voluntarily stay back, both for their own
protection and for the protection of those
fighting the fires.
The Birthday Fire isn't the only fire to have
blazed up in the region, though as of this
morning it was the only fire active in this
district. High temperatures and severely dry
conditions have raised the fire danger level
throughout the region to extreme.
There is a fire currently burning in the Priest
Lake District, and local air crews are working
cooperatively to cover both fires, and several
fires have sparked up around Avery, Idaho, in
the St. Joe region, and fires are burning in
Montana and Washington.
On all those fires, officials are looking
forward to the much cooler temperatures
predicted by Wednesday, though the front
bringing the welcome temperatures might also
bring slightly increased winds.
Seeing how rapidly the Birthday Fire jumped in
the face of virtually no wind, even a breeze,
they fear, could prove a problem.
The image on this page was taken from the
U.S. Forest Service's "InciWeb" site on this
fire, available on-line at
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/2665/. |
|
Questions or comments? Click
here to
email! |
|
|
