Incident Command established

SMELTERVILLE — From a simple drive-by on Interstate 90 or Commerce Drive, a passing motorist may write off the newly erected Incident Command Post in Smelterville as a simple place for weary firefighters to rest their heads for a brief time before heading back out to the fire line. While it does serve this purpose adequately (gravely terrain aside), what is not readily apparent is the tremendous amount of coordination being carried out at any given moment to support firefighting efforts.

Interagency North Idaho Type 3 Incident Management Team Public Information Officer Caroline McGough explains that following the transition in command from the Type 1 team that had most recently been in charge of the Character Complex (consisting primarily of the Deceitful Wildfire) to the current Type 3 team over last weekend, a change of location for base camp was in order.

"I believe that a land use agreement (with the Kellogg School District) had ended, as well as school getting started," she said.

The previous Type 1 team had been utilizing the area around the KSD District Office and Administrative Annex (formerly Kellogg Middle School) in Kellogg. The fire camp officially moved to its new location on Commerce Drive on Sunday.

"This seemed like a good location to do it," McGough said. "It's rocky for sleeping, which isn't ideal, but it's a big enough location to have everything here, we’re centrally located for delivering supplies and providing agency support, and we're right next to the Coeur d'Alene River Ranger District office."

Those coming to the camp are first welcomed by a security checkpoint on the east side to ensure that only the appropriate people are coming in. Deeper in, the outdoor briefing area — marked by giant bulletin boards — can be seen just north of the "refer" or refrigeration truck that comes complete with a mobile kitchen for preparing the camp's lunches and providing ice and cold beverages.

At the center of the site are the various command tents and the base camp crew's staging area. The roomy and air conditioned command tents each house a different arm of the firefighting efforts, such as Operations & Meteorology, Medical & Communications, Finance & Planning, and others.

McGough explains that Type 3 teams normally don't have resources such as meteorologists, but due to the complexity of the Deceitful fire, they have stuck around after the Type 1 team's departure.

During the day when firefighters are largely out on the fire line, the camp remains mostly calm. When the crews return though, flood lights are kicked on at night to facilitate dinner and the little down time they have.

For sleeping arrangements, a large portion of the lot has been transformed into a small tent city.

Utilizing private contractors from Kentucky/Arizona, the the interagency management team also offers fire crews hot showers via a mobile shower trailer that is parked behind the sleeping tents. This shower trailer also comes equipped with hand washing stations as well — a practice that has been stressed in the camp due to the resurgence of COVID-19.

Speaking of COVID-19, the camp also has a "quarantine" tent set up at the far west end of the camp to isolate potentially infected personnel.

While the layout of the camp is largely fixed, the roughly 300 men and women using it are anything but.

All working in conjunction with each other in this little area are local, state, federal employees from all over the country — along with numerous contractors that are tasked with supplying a particular service.

In the Finance & Planning tent alone, you have interagency personnel from multiple different states/homes all working together.

Camp numbers have swelled since the initial move last weekend due to the Deceitful fire’s rapid growth on Monday.

“After the blow up, we have now created a forward operating base/base camp at Shoshone Mountain Retreat, where ground resources are being supported by the retreat staff,” McGough said. “Staffing has significantly increased due to the 7 mile run and we needed a larger facility to house the resources it takes to support the Deceitful fire.”

The Smelterville ICP provides a central location for overhead team members to fulfill their roles. The Base Camp at Shoshone Mountain Retreat provides a closer location for ground resources to continue fire suppression for the rural communities of Beaver Creek, Prichard, Eagle and Murray.

Base camp facilities include hot meals, showers, bunk houses and ample space for staging of equipment.

As for how long the Smelterville camp will be sticking around, McGough expects that the Type 3 team will stay for their full assignment, which would be 14 days from the day they took over the situation.

"Resources are definitely stretched across the nation, especially in our region," she said.