Thursday, March 28, 2024
39.0°F

Firefighters help with area blazes

by Brian Walker
| August 28, 2010 9:00 PM

HAYDEN - Local firefighters are playing a role in getting the region's fires under control.

Gary Weber, assistant manager at the Interagency Dispatch Center based at the Coeur d'Alene Airport, said some firefighters spent Friday mopping up North Idaho small fires caused mostly due to lightning but most have been deployed to the central and southern parts of the state where the situation is more dire.

"We have about 75 people elsewhere in the state," Weber said. "Five engines left for the Cascade area a couple days ago and a helicopter left for Boise (Friday) morning. We've sent quite a few resources in that direction."

Teams have also been sent to Oregon and Montana and one firefighter is assisting in eastern Washington.

"We do send people to other areas, but if anything comes up in-state it's a higher priority," Weber said.

Weber said about a dozen fires were reported on Thursday and Friday morning in North Idaho.

"The biggest of any of these was 3 acres," he said. "There were no major problems with any of them. Most of them were in the backcountry, but some were remote enough that we had to put smoke jumpers on them as that was the most efficient means of access.

"We survived the wind on Thursday."

On Friday, just a single-engine tanker sat staged and ready for action.

"Overall, there's not a lot of equipment movement out of here today," Weber said.

Weber said the dead parts of the backcountry are dry, but the cool, wet spring and the living stands have prevented disaster in North Idaho so far.

"Fires got started with dry conditions, but the growing things are really green and that limited the spread on a lot of them," Weber said. "The dead areas are definitely dry, but it hasn't been really bad compared to some other years."