North Idaho could be next for extreme wildfire

By CHANSE WATSON

Managing Editor and JOSH MCDONALD

Staff Reporter

Could this year’s summer be the one where North Idaho burns?

Some experts believe that it is definitely possible, but it seems that eliminating the human threat may be the biggest step toward keeping that from happening.

In a recent article published by the Idaho Statesman (entitled “Get used to the smoke. We're on track for more wildfires — and they'll reshape Idaho”), North Idaho is projected to see some of the largest uptick in total area burned in the entire Western United States.

This excerpt from that story details what scientists are projecting:

North Idaho is among parts of the West that can expect to see more than five times the area burned during the next 20 years than fires covered in the past 20.

That trend is expected to continue across the Western U.S. and northwestern Canada, though not uniformly, according to the recent study by forest scientists Thomas Kitzberger of Argentina, Don Falk and Thomas Swetnam of the University of Arizona, and Leroy Westerling of the University of California, Merced.

The scientists predict the regions with the most burned land will also include western Montana, western Wyoming, central Utah, northern Colorado, northern Arizona, western Nevada and the whole of New Mexico. In many areas the actual burning on the ground has exceeded the models, said Westerling.

"It's going to be a lot worse," he said.

North Idaho, with its vast amounts of densely forested mountains, could essentially be ripe for the burning should the worst happen.

Shoshone County itself accounts for much of the North Idaho wilderness — covering 2,635 square miles of land, but only sporting roughly 12,500 residents.

The National Interagency Fire Center’s Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for June, July, August and September shows similar (but not as severe) findings in regard to our local area.

“By mid-July heavy fine fuels will be dried out at lower elevations in North Idaho and Western/Central Montana. Higher elevations will be drier than average in the latter half of July, which warrants an increase to Above Normal significant wildland fire potential in the Idaho and western/central Montana.”

Idaho Department of Lands Fire Warden Kjell Truesdell explained that this drying out of fuels in lower elevations is dangerous, considering the mountainous topography of Shoshone County.

“Fire likes to go uphill. Sometimes it’s that straight forward, but it really depends on the fuels.”

The “fuels” Truesdell referred to include any sort of dead or dry forest material that could easily catch and spread fire, such as dry grasses, rotting logs, dead trees, old undergrowth, etc.

Forest management agencies such as IDL and the United States Forest Service work hard to remove as many potential fuels as they can before fire season by utilizing controlled burn and logging operations, but there is only so much that can be done when it comes to mother nature (and human behavior).

Truesdell estimates that roughly 50 percent of the local wildfires in the last five years were started by lightning strikes. The other 50 percent were attributed to human causes.

The 2017 wildfire season in Shoshone County saw examples of both types.

One of the first fires that wildland firefighters responded to last year was a blaze just south of Big Creek on the side of a large hill. This fire was caused by lighting the night before and was relegated to a fairly high elevation, leaving it little room to climb any higher or spread.

Not long after the Big Creek fire was the larger Beaver Creek blaze that started when a naturally felled tree struck a power pole and burst into flames. Fanned by the wind, the fire spread from the tree to the base of the nearby hillside. From there, it did what it likes to do and climbed the hill.

Truesdell explains that fire’s propensity to go up, combined with our areas mountainous terrain, can affect how fire crews respond to certain situations.

“Hypothetically, if you had one fire truck … to send out the door and you had two starts. One is in the mountains — high elevation, and the other is in somebody’s backyard — low elevation; we’re going to go after that lower elevation one first based on population.”

Obviously there is little fire crews can do about preventing natural factors such as lightning and dryer conditions, but USFS District Ranger Dan Scaife explains that eliminating human caused fires could be the catalyst for North Idaho and Shoshone County to avoid disaster.

“Looking at temperature and moisture data from the local stations over the past 100 years, the trend appears to be towards warmer and drier summers,” he said. “That could result in larger wildfires, but whether we have more fires will likely depend on human caused starts; under warmer and drier conditions we have less lightning, so there is a reduced number of natural ignitions.”

Mixing these dry fuels in our lower elevations with irresponsible fire behavior from just one person could easily be the recipe for a wildfire.

Sticking with long-term trends, Coeur d’Alene River Ranger District Assistant Fire Management Officer Sarah Jerome is skeptical that the severe findings in the Idaho Statesman article completely apply to our area, but she does agree that we will see much more burned area than we did in the past year-to-year.

“One reason for that is around here, we had very little burned area in the past 20 years, especially if you exclude our big fire season in 2015. I wouldn’t expect fire seasons to get much worse than they were in 2015 and 2017, but I would expect those type of fire seasons to happen much more often,” she explained. “Fire seasons are entirely different than they were 25 years ago. I also agree that the smoke-free summers that we used to enjoy are likely gone. We get a lot of smoke from Washington and Montana, so we don’t even have to have fires around here to have really smoky conditions.”

With the fire danger level elevated to Moderate in Shoshone County and Independence Day on the way, it is important now more than ever to be responsible in the woods.

The American Red Cross has put together some very simple tips that people can use to avoid starting a forest fire such as never leaving a fire unattended, not starting fires on a windy day, properly disposing of cigarette butts, properly burning yard waste, practicing firework safety and being responsible when operating off-road vehicles.

For wildfire news and tips, like the Shoshone County Fire Prevention Cooperative on Facebook.

For information on new and old wildfires in Shoshone County, visit shoshonenewspress.com and search “wildfires.”