Fire season foreshadowed
Reporter Brian Walker raced across The Press parking lot Friday morning as I pulled into the driveway.
He yelled into my car window as he sprinted to his own vehicle: "There's a fire in Athol. Sounds serious. I'm heading up there."
That moment became a theme for our workday, a tense one that will likely recur more than once in the coming months.
Walker stood nearby as firefighters battled a ground fire that had flamed up quickly as a homeowner was burning grass stubble on his property west of Silverwood Theme Park.
Back in the newsroom, we listened to the voices on the scanner. The firefighters noted the blaze was precariously close to two homes.
After the flames were extinguished, fire officials said the homeowner "did everything right."
It's just that dry.
A few hours later, voices on the scanner were again talking about a fire in Athol. It took us a few minutes to realize it was another fire, a different blaze. This one was about 5 miles north of the earlier fire. Reporter David Cole headed for it.
The voices on the scanner were different this time. There was a heightened sense of urgency in the firefighters' communications.
We listened as they called for more water, more crews.
This was no small fire.
"This one is bad, Brian," said Northern Lakes firefighter and public information officer Jim Lyon, on the phone to Brian Walker, after Lyon learned the fire was covering 30 acres and spreading.
Lyon said he knows the fire and conditions are extreme when he is called to the scene as a PIO when the blaze isn't even in Northern Lakes' district.
That fire burned 50 acres before being extinguished, and again, it had moved dangerously close to several homes.
In the newsroom, we came to a somber realization.
The days of just watching media outlets in southern Idaho, California, Montana and Washington cover the valiant efforts of firefighters battling wildfires hundreds of miles away from Kootenai County are probably over. At least for this fire season, they will be watching us too.