Fire information
Today, Friday, Aug. 24, the public is invited to a third town hall meeting to discuss the Castle Rock Fire. The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the Hemingway Elementary School gymnasium, in Ketchum.
Additional information on the Ketchum-area fire is available through the following resources:
· The Blaine County Web site, www.blainecounty.org.
· The public can call (208) 726-7811 to access up-to-the-minute fire information at Ketchum City Hall. City and county employees as well as federal agency staff will be ready to answer questions from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.
· Current information on the Castle Rock Fire and other regional blazes can be found by logging on to federal Web sites www.inciweb.org and www.nifc.gov.
With a confidence born from several days of successful back burning operations, fire managers on the 15,757-acre Castle Rock Fire initiated another day of controlled burns in the lower Warm Springs Creek and Griffin Butte areas Thursday.
Areas next to Ketchum intentionally burned on Thursday were the Penny Lake Chutes west of Ketchum on the south-facing aspect of Warm Springs Ridge as well as east-facing slopes of Griffin Butte, just northwest of the Hulen Meadows neighborhood. In both spots, large columns of smoke once again darkened Ketchum's horizon to the west and northwest of town.
For fire managers overseeing the suppression effort on the Castle Rock Fire, completion of the back burning operations can't come any time too soon. Sometime later this weekend or into early next week, a cold front will move into Blaine County and the surrounding region, according to weather forecasts from the National Weather Service.
And with the arrival of that weather system, high winds will likely once again begin to blow over the massive Castle Rock Fire, Castle Rock Fire Incident Commander Jeanne Pincha-Tulley told a large crowd of local residents gathered at the Hemingway Elementary School Wednesday night.
"We want to get it all nailed down through here before the wind comes," Pincha-Tulley said of back burning operations planned for the Griffin Butte to Fox Creek area.
Early reports coming in from firefighters working on the fire line indicate the back burning operations are working quite successfully. The intentional burns have apparently burned what was intended to burn, including underbrush and debris on the forest floor, but have left most evergreen trees alive and intact, officials report.
"It has been two very good days for us," said Joe Reyes, the operations section chief on the Castle Rock Fire and second in command behind Pincha-Tulley. "So far we've made very good progress."
On Wednesday, Reyes announced that if the current weather pattern holds long enough and hotshot crews digging direct line east to west in the Fox Creek drainage are able complete their task fast enough, fire managers may not have to initiate back burning operations further north along state Highway 75 as they had planned. If that ultimately comes to pass, that would save the Chocolate Gulch and Oregon Gulch areas from being intentionally burned.
"If we can hold Fox Creek we won't have to do that," he said to thunderous applause from the crowd at Hemingway Elementary School. "We're not there yet, but that's what we're trying to do."
Asked about the status of the Red Warrior Creek spot fire seven miles southwest of Ketchum behind Bald Mountain, Pincha-Tulley sounded cautiously upbeat.
Crews are working to encircle the large spot fire with a combination of direct hand line from the west and three to four miles of bulldozer line beginning along the Warm Springs Creek Road and heading south on the ridgeline between Alturas and Bassett gulches. The crews will keep their lines as close to the burned area as possible to minimize impacts on the surrounding area.
Where fingers of burned area alternate with unburned areas, fire crews will "go direct as possible," Pincha-Tulley said.
Unburned areas inside the fire line will likely be burned during future burnout operations in the Red Warrior Creek area.
As for whether Pincha-Tulley is concerned about holding the fire away from Bald Mountain.
"I'm worried about everything," she said, and it all comes down to the weather.
If the weather holds long enough, "we have a pretty good shot," Pincha-Tulley said of the ongoing bulldozer work to put secure fire line between the western flank of Bald Mountain and the Red Warrior Creek spot fire.
"It's a race," she said.
One fairly significant development on the Castle Rock Fire suppression effort was the accidental injury Wednesday night of a firefighter.
At Thursday's early morning briefing for firefighters at the River Run Lodge, fire managers said a young woman was hit by a falling aspen tree while working in an area recently burned as part of the large back burning operation.
"She's not seriously hurt," said Bob Moore, safety officer for the Castle Rock Fire.
Aspen trees can be an especially dangerous hazard on wildfires because their root systems are so shallow, Moore said. When wildfires burn over areas of aspens, the roots are exposed.
"Pay attention when you're in aspen stands," Moore told firefighters Thursday morning.
He also warned the firefighters to watch out for moose, bears and other wild animals "chased down out of the hills" by the Castle Rock Fire.
At last count Thursday, the Castle Rock Fire was 9 percent contained, up from 6 percent containment the day before. The fire's total acreage count on Thursday of 15,757 acres is also up by 10 percent from the day before, when it was at 14,190 acres.
Approximately 30 engines continue to provide structure protection in the Hulen Meadows, lower Board Ranch, Warm Springs, Adams Gulch and Fox Creek areas. On Thursday morning, a total of 950 firefighters from 27 states and Puerto Rico were assigned to the Castle Rock Fire.
There are also apparently a total of four heavy, three medium and two light helicopters engaged in fire operations on the large blaze. Heavy air tankers from Pocatello are also supporting the helicopters.
Residents of the upper and lower Board Ranch area west of Ketchum in the Warm Springs Creek drainage apparently still have a wait ahead of them before Pincha-Tulley is comfortable letting them back into their homes.
"I still need to get some room against that line," she told the crowd Wednesday.
Given a thunderous applause as she prepared to leave the community meeting for the night, Pincha-Tulley cautioned people against becoming too confident right away. There's still a lot of work to do before the fire is contained, she said.
"I really don't want to screw this up," she told the crowd. "Let me contain it first."
The fire was started Thursday, Aug. 16, by a lightning strike west of Ketchum, before spreading at a rapid rate to the north and the east. It is now the No. 1 priority wildfire in the nation.
To this point, no structures have been burned.
The Castle Rock Fire escalated Saturday afternoon in steep terrain across from Rooks Creek before it jumped Warm Springs Road west of Ketchum and steamed into the heart of the Fox Peak area.
Photo by Willy Cook
