{"id":22369,"date":"2025-05-14T01:30:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T07:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22369"},"modified":"2025-05-13T18:54:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T00:54:02","slug":"forecasts-predict-mounting-fire-risk-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/14\/forecasts-predict-mounting-fire-risk-this-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Forecasts Predict Mounting Fire Risk This Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local Firefighters Urge Vigilance As Questions Linger About Federal Support<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

By Mark Dee<\/em><\/p>\n

Last summer, Idaho lost more acreage to wildfire than in any year since 2007. This year, preliminary forecasts call for similar conditions in the months ahead.
\nModels from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Climate Prediction Center call for an above average chance of hotter-than-normal temperatures and lower than usual precipitation totals. That, coupled with an analysis of the last winter\u2019s weather and on-the-ground vegetation, led the forecasters at the National Interagency Fire Center to anticipate above-average fire risk spreading into Idaho this July and, especially, August.
\n\u201cFor July and August, concern shifts northward to northern Nevada and Idaho,\u201d the center stated in its May 1 outlook. \u201cFine fuel carryover is expected to be above normal in the lower elevations. Meanwhile, despite the healthy winter snowfall, forecast prolonged warm and dry conditions will bring the higher elevations of Idaho into play by August, with above normal potential forecast.\u201d
\nThe next forecast is scheduled for June 1.
\nBetween the weather and fuels, Ketchum Assistant Fire Chief Seth Martin expects conditions \u201cto be similar\u201d to 2024. Nearly 1 million acres burned across the Idaho last season, accounting for about one ninth of all land burned in the United States in 2024. By pure acreage, that statistic makes last year Idaho\u2019s worst fire season since 2007, when the Murphy Complex Fire, Idaho\u2019s largest since 1910, burned close to half a million acres by itself near the Nevada border.
\nLocally, the impact was hard to ignore. The Wapiti Fire, which lightning sparked near Grandjean on July 24, burned more than 125,000 acres before it was contained on Halloween, casting a smoky pall on Stanley\u2019s summer. While much smaller, the human caused Bench Lakes Fire was just as visible, burning through the popular hiking destination near Redfish Lake and, eventually, down to the shores of the lake itself.
\nMartin isn\u2019t in the business of forecasting fires, but he isn\u2019t surprised by the prevailing outlook.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been proven for many years that the climate is getting hotter and drier,\u201d he said, \u201cand a hotter and drier climate makes fires bigger and faster.\u201d
\nKetchum Fire is looking to hire an engine boss to run its wildland apparatus, but is otherwise fully staffed, Martin said.
\nMartin reiterated that all of the area\u2019s mutual aid agreements, which promise that local and federal agencies help across jurisdictional bounds, remain intact.
\nLess clear is how that help will look as federal employees reel from a winter of staff cuts following President Donald Trump\u2019s suite of executive orders aimed at paring the government\u2019s workforce. Trump\u2019s orders spared public safety staff, including wildland firefighters, but slashed many supporting roles. About 10% of U.S. Forest Service employees lost their jobs in February, according to ProPublica, along with 8% of Bureau of Land Management employees, according to the National Resources Defense Council, a conservation advocacy group.
\nAbout 75% of Forest Service employees are trained in wildland firefighting, working on the frontlines, ProPublica reported, with others providing support during a fire. Other employees are tasked with preventative work in fire-prone areas, like thinning and executing controlled burns.
\nBy press time, Forest Service had not responded to questions about its firefighting capacity on the Sawtooth National Forest, or what preparations were underway on Forest Service land. Martin, whose jurisdiction is largely surrounded by that national forest, did not comment on questions of federal support this summer.
\nFurther south, Wood River Fire and Rescue Fire Marshal Mike Elle told the Wood River Weekly that \u201cBLM equipment is fully staffed at all stations and deployment yards. Aircraft usually come online June 1, Elle said, though he expects some support to be ready sooner.
\n\u201cWe do almost all of our response work with the BLM,\u201d he said, \u201cso that is our biggest concern in the south end of the Wood River Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firefighters: Prepare Your Home For Fire Season<\/strong>
\nBoth Elle and Martin asked homeowners to use the springtime to get their properties ready for the summer ahead. Every city in the Wood River Valley sits in what the U.S. Fire Administration calls the Wildland-Urban Interface, where manmade structures like homes meet undeveloped vegetation\u2014fuel for fire, Martin said. These areas are most prone to destructive, sometimes deadly, wildfires.
\nAt minimum, both firefighters emphasize creating a \u201cdefensible space\u201d around buildings by thinning vegetation, clearing deadfall, pruning low-hanging branches and ensuring you have a 20-foot-wide driveway clear of overhead obstructions that can accommodate fire trucks.
\nElle suggests going further to make your home \u201csurvivable\u201d during a wildfire. Defensible spaces allow firefighters to get between a building and an encroaching blaze. A \u201csurvivable home\u201d can withstand a fire on its own.
\n\u201cFire Departments in this county do not have enough fire engines or firefighters to protect every single home from an approaching wildfire, so making a home \u2018survivable\u2019 means a wildfire can burn around your home without setting it on fire and without firefighters there to protect it,\u201d Elle said. \u201cOnce a wildland fire passes by an area, fire engines then patrol the area looking for hot spots or embers that possibly start another fire.\u201d
\nFor more information, including a checklist of ways to secure your property, Elle recommends go to www.firewise.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local Firefighters Urge Vigilance As Questions Linger About Federal Support By Mark Dee Last summer, Idaho lost more acreage to wildfire than in any year since 2007. This year, preliminary forecasts call for similar conditions in the months ahead. Models from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Climate Prediction Center call for an above average […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,72,76,1268,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blaine-county","8":"category-community","9":"category-emergency-services","10":"category-fire","11":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22371,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22369\/revisions\/22371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}