Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Castle Rock Fire growing exponentially

From 30 acres Friday, blaze increased to 12,058 acres Tuesday


By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer

Castle Rock Fire Timeline
Click to enlarge (PDF)

From modest lightning-caused beginnings, the Castle Rock Fire has grown to massive proportions in as few as five days.

It was 5:51 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 16, when Boise-based smokejumpers Dale Springer, Ben Oakleaf and a third unnamed jumper leapt from their Twin Otter turboprop airplane into warm summertime air 3,000 feet above the valley floor of Warm Springs Creek.

Descending through the air, the trio could easily see the haze of smoke from a small wildfire near the intersection of Castle Gulch and Barr Gulch on the south side of the Warm Springs Creek Road near Castle Rock. Varying reports have placed the Castle Rock Fire at between a half-acre and 5 acres when the smokejumpers made initial contact with it Thursday evening.

Touching down about 10 miles west of Ketchum, Springer led his team of smokejumpers to the perimeter of the small wildfire.

There, they quickly found the lone lightning-struck tree the fire originated from, Springer told Idaho Mountain Express photographer Willy Cook several days later, on Sunday. He made his remarks next to what was then the incident command post adjacent to Castle Rock.

Springer said the situation looked promising when they first arrived.

"I thought we could get it," he said.

That optimism quickly turned to concern, though, as high winds began to fan the flames. Soon after, the blaze came into contact with an extensive stand of north-facing timber on the south side of the Warm Springs Creek Road and took off.

"It was a half-acre fire, and it ran away," he said. "It got in the timber, and there was not much we could do."

Springer said the decisive combination of steep terrain, "turbulent" winds and extremely dry forest fuels contributed to the fire's quick eruption.

"The fuels here have been extremely receptive," he said.

Since fire crews began to work the blaze initially on Thursday, the fire has continued to grow by exponential leaps and bounds.

From just 3 to 5 acres on Thursday, the Castle Rock Fire grew to about 25 acres by Friday morning, the Sawtooth National Forest's north zone fire management officer, Bill Murphy said. By Friday evening, the blaze still remained on the south side of Warm Springs Creek, but had grown to about 150 acres.

On Saturday morning, the Castle Rock Fire had made another significant leap and was between 500 and 600 acres in size, Murphy said. Sometime between noon and 3 p.m. Saturday the blaze jumped north over Warm Springs Creek Road and began running up Rooks Creek drainage towards Fox Peak. The blaze also ran over but apparently did not damage several cabins in the Frenchman's Bend area.

In a matter of hours the blaze made a significant run up the entire length of roughly 10-mile-long Rooks Creek Saturday, and by that night was reportedly about 3,200 acres in size, Murphy said.

He said by mid-day Sunday, the fast-moving blaze's rapid growth had continued and had increased the size of the fire to somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 to 7,000 acres.

The fire's remarkable growth didn't quit there.

At a briefing for firefighters at Sun Valley Resort's River Run Lodge Monday morning, fire managers said the large blaze had grown to 10,726 acres, and was still threatening three neighborhoods north and northwest of Ketchum. By this time, the fire was firmly entrenched in upper Adams Gulch and Eve Gulch, as well as in Fox Creek, where a large spot fire was burning. These areas contain trails that are among the most popular recreational sites used by local hikers, mountain bikers and trail runners.

Monday's detailed acreage count was generated from the air after nightfall Sunday evening using infrared imaging.

During Tuesday's daily 7 a.m. briefing for firefighters at the River Run Lodge, fire managers put the official extent of the blaze at 12,058 acres, a roughly 11 percent increase in size from the day before.

Despite the volatile nature, no structures in the most threatened areas out Warm Springs Creek had been lost so far, officials report.

At 4 p.m. Sunday, a mandatory evacuation order was issued for all of Warm Springs Road west of the Ketchum city limits. The order, issued with the authority of the governor's office, does not pertain to areas inside the city limits.

At the same time, the city of Ketchum issued notice that residents of Gates Road near Warm Springs Village and to the east on Warm Springs Road to Short Swing Lane should be prepared to evacuate. Warm Springs Road west of the first bridge has been closed to all but local traffic. The voluntary evacuation has also been enlarged to include the west side of state Highway 75 from the north Ketchum city limits to mile marker 134 at Fox Creek.

Around noon Tuesday, fire officials with the Type 1 incident management team in charge of managing the Castle Rock Fire were preparing for a large burnout operation in the Warm Springs Creek area of Ketchum, in addition to areas in Adams Gulch, west of the Hulen Meadows neighborhood and in the Fox Creek area.

Fire officials said the burnout operation would allow them to control the fire, which has been burning out of control since Saturday, Aug. 18.




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