Friday, December 28, 2012

Wildfires brought fear and smoke to region

Enclosure Fire burns on Castle Rock anniversary


By KATHERINE WUTZ
Express Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of National Forest Service The Halstead Fire burns in a stand of live and beetle-killed timber north of Stanley last August.

The Enclosure Fire may not have been the largest of the region’s wildfires in 2012, but it may have been the eeriest.  On the eve of the anniversary of the 2007 Castle Rock Fire, a human-caused wildfire flared up southwest of Ketchum, causing some to fear for their houses and property.

The fire was reported at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 16—five years to the day, almost to the hour, that the 48,000-acre Castle Rock Fire was reported to have started, and roughly in the same area. The fire started on a ridge between the Red Warrior and North Fork of Deer Creek drainages.

Forest Service officials originally estimated the fire’s size at 250 acres, then 350, before GPS mapping on Saturday, Aug. 18, set it at 179 acres burned.

Ketchum District Ranger Kurt Nelson said at the time that a major concern was the amount of fuel available to the fire if it were to spread far enough south toward Hailey.

“If we had shifting winds that came out of the west or northwest, [the fire] had the potential to go into heavy fuels and timber in the Deer Creek drainage and wrap around to Greenhorn and Deer Creek [neighborhoods],” Nelson said.

Firefighters and equipment from the Ketchum, Hailey, Sun Valley and Bellevue fire departments, as well as crews from Wood River Fire & Rescue, formed a “structure protection task force” on Thursday night.

No homes or property were damaged.  Nelson said the fire never came closer than three miles to private property in the Frenchman’s Bend area of Warm Springs, five miles from private land in Greenhorn and six miles from the top of Bald Mountain.

Early investigation showed that the fire was human-caused, based on factors that Nelson said include the point of ignition and the lack of anything else that can be pinpointed specifically, such as a tree that could have been struck by lightning.

Nelson said on Dec. 26 that the investigation is still ongoing, but that the law enforcement branch of the U.S. Forest Service has informed him the fire was not set intentionally—despite a statement by Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall at a Ketchum City Council meeting on Aug. 20.

“It’s sad that there was someone running around trying to re-create one of our community’s most challenging times on the event’s fifth anniversary,” he said.

 

Halstead Fire

The Halstead Fire near Stanley also came close to home for many, especially for outfitters who have base operations around the Salmon River.

The Halstead Fire burned three miles north of Stanley and grew to 179,305 acres by the end of September, threatening Cape Horn and Stanley creeks, as well as state Highway 75, U.S. Highway 21 and the Yankee Fork area.

However, river outfitters said they were undeterred by the smoke in the air, and Sawtooth National Recreation Area officials allowed them to float the Salmon despite its closure to other recreationists. Though smoke blanketed the Wood River Valley, including Ketchum and Hailey—prompting air quality advisories for several consecutive weeks—Stanley residents said the air was clear where they were.

 

Other fires

The Wood River Valley also experienced smoke from the Trinity Ridge Fire near Featherville and from the Mustang Complex Fire west of the town of Salmon, both of which burned through July and August. Trinity Ridge was contained in September after burning 145,696 acres. The Mustang Complex Fire reached 338,319 acres before holding steady.


Kate Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com

 




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.