Wildfire season
90-acre fire squelched Wednesday at Craters of the Moon
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
August in Idaho is fire season, but so far this summer, the skies have been relatively free of smoke and public lands firefighters are spending their days looking for creative ways to earn their keep.
South Central Idaho Bureau of Land Management fire crews have re-sponded to 39 fires this summer that have charred only 70 acres. In an aver-age year, about 150 fires burn 90,000 acres, said Sky Huffaker-Buffat, the agency?s public affairs officer.
Fire season lasts another two months, but the number of fires so far is falling behind average.
?Apparently there?s really no phenomenon that this particular lack of season can be attributed to right now,? Huffacker-Buffat said. ?There?s been more moisture. Some of our fuel moistures in the forests are actually re-porting full ?green-up.? Things are just moister this year than they have been.?
However, fire crews busied themselves Wednesday when a fire flared up on the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, east of Carey. The South Park Fire started at about 11 a.m. and consumed 90 acres before fire crews were able to extinguish the flames.
With ample resources available, BLM fire crews descended on the blaze with authority.
The Twin Falls Air Attack Base serviced a heavy air tanker for the first time in conjunction with the fire. A tanker out of Boise bombed the fire with retardant.
Nine engines and two helicopters remained on the fire late Thursday to mop up the scene.
Huffaker-Buffat said the cause of the fire is under investigation. But there were lighting strikes in the South Park area Wednesday morning.
The South Park Fire was the first fire larger than 10 acres that South Central Idaho BLM responded to this summer.
?This is the first fire of any kind of significance. Everything we?ve bat-tled up to this point has been tiny in comparison,? she said.
But Huffaker-Baffat wasn?t going to rest on the BLM?s laurels.
?There?s all sorts of could-bes or maybes at this point. It could be that our season is just being delayed.?
