Birthday Fire sparks up
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/.