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Subscribe to RSSA dangerous wall of flames is steadily closing in on Featherville, Idaho. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.
As an Idaho wildfire was closing in on two small towns Saturday, hundreds of Washington and California residents who earlier fled flames were returning to their communities to see if their homes were spared.
In Idaho, homeowners in Featherville and Pine have been preparing for days as flames from the nearly 83,000-acre Trinity Ridge Fire have approached the towns.
Officials ordered Featherville residents to evacuate late Saturday afternoon as smoke from the approaching blaze created a health hazard, the Elmore County Sheriff's office told NBC station KTVB.
The fire was expected to reach Featherville, about 60 east of Boise, late Saturday or early Sunday, Gary Lehnhausen, a fire information officer with the Trinity Ridge Fire, told KTVB.
NOAA via AFP - Getty Images
This NOAA image obtained August 18, 2012 shows the smoky haze has lifted over Northern California, Nevada and Idaho, revealing the many fires afflicting the region.
Fire activity increases in the warm afternoon sun as humidity dips to 5 percent and vegetation on surrounding hills dries out, Lehnhausen said, making it difficult for the 1,082 firefighters assigned to the blaze.
“Don’t expect a rush of flames,” he said. Expect to see spot fires and trees torching, he said.
The fire burning through timber grew 15 square miles overnight.
Idaho National Guard members are scheduled to begin assisting firefighters on Sunday.
Fire came close to historic mining town of Rocky Bar but no buildings were damaged, KTVB reported.
Pine, about 10 miles from Featherville, is the next town that will have firefighters’ attention.
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In central Washington, fire officials prepared for the possibility that lighting and thunderstorms could make it more difficult to contain the 23,000 acre Taylor Bridge fire that destroyed 48 homes and 15 other structures.
Full containment was not expected until Monday, NBC station KING reported, but many residents were returning to the south and east sides of a 35-square mile blaze near the town of Cle Elum in the Cascade Range, about 75 miles east of Seattle.
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"People are finding a little bit of everything. Some homes were damaged, some homes were destroyed and some homes weren't even touched," Fred Slyfield, emergency management specialist for Kittitas County, Wash., said Saturday morning.
Wildfires continue to burn across the country, with flames racing through Washington State for the fifth day and two small communities in Idaho bracing for the worst. NBC's Kristen Dahlgren reports.
About 900 firefighters and eight helicopters were still building a line around the fire, which started Monday at a bridge construction project and exploded through dry grass, brush and trees. More than 400 people fled their homes. About 30 people are in local shelters, Slyfield said.
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Fire danger remained high in the area, with hot, dry weather and a chance for storms and lightning expected Saturday evening.
"We're kind of on edge about that," said Mick Mueller, a spokesman at the fire command center.
Crews in California made progress on some of the nearly dozen wildfires burning across that state. About 400 residents were allowed to return home in a rural area of San Diego County in the southern part of the state.
Firefighters also have been making progress against a series of wildfires burning in Northern California, but officials say more than 900 lightning strikes late Friday and early Saturday have started more fires.
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Blazes in multiple states threaten houses and cause evacuations.
State fire spokesman Daniel Berlant says lightning sparked more than a dozen new fires late Friday and early Saturday, though most of the new fires are small.
Related: What would you take? A couple pack to flee wildfire in Washington
Meanwhile, firefighters continued to battle two huge wildfires on national parklands in Northern California. The nearly 1,200 firefighters struggling to surround the Chips fire in Plumas National Forest have the fire 34 percent contained.
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Leave a Comment:
Controlled burns need to be allowed to thin the understory of our forests.
There is no such thing as a "controlled" burn! BURN BABY BURN!
One way or the other, nature will get you, burn baby burn!
they need more firefighting aircraft like the kind my brother flys.
google CL 215 and watch your house being saved.
There is absolutely no reason or rationale for not being able to save these homes and people's property as well as the environment. The only stopping point is existing policy of the US GOV. The C-15 Globemasters that are stationed in Tacoma could lay down more water/suppressants in one pass than all of the broken down DC6's could in a week! Check it out. If I'm wrong, I will be more than happy to apologize. Call your Mayor, County Commissioiners, State and Federal Senators, Representatives, etc. etc. and tell them that the time has come to fight fire with the best possible resources rather than antiquated junk. Besides, our tax dollars have already paid for these planes and the pilots and the personnel that support them.
Hey! Don't put our old Globemasters at risk!
Fafnerdon if you had a clue of where this fire is burning you would KNOW THAT A GLOBEMASTER COULD NOT !!! safely fly the canyons and draws also they are flying C-130s
Just curious where you heard that DC6 were being used on this fire? I live here and work almost directly across the freeway from the airport where the National Interagency Fire Center ("NIFC") is located. I have seen nothing but the large military transport C 130 smoke planes flying overhead (when I can actually see through the smoke, that is). The NIFC website also mentions only C 130's in reference to the current fires.
Don't tread on my tax dollars by spending Federal money......WAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! This is why they can't use those planes.....because of idiots....
Shades of the "Big Burn" the forest fire that saved America.
Why is it that everyone believes they know more about fire containment than the people fighting the fires. First of all, plane drops of water and fire retardant are not even always possible. It depends on wind, weather, fire conditions and topography. Flying over fires is a high risk activity. They won't send the birds up unless conditions are optimal for success and even then they often lose a plane and crew. I'm sure these guys are using whatever means are possible and practical to control these fires.
The one thing I do know is this- if they'd clear the underbrush during times when there is no danger of fire, the fires would be less devastating. But "not with my tax dollars".....don't tread on my pea brain, again....it might not survive the next one...
Lol @ DB17..."clear the underbrush"?
The U.S. Forest Service manages 20.5 million acres of land in Idaho including 12.8 million acres of timberlands. Are you going to volunteer for the job? This isn't like cleaning up the overgrowth in your back yard.
Ok Buzzkill, Maybe home dwellers would be interested in clearing the underbrush near their own homes. Take care of the empty lots near their houses and keep the flammable décor and vegetation away.
Don't say it can't be done. My family maintains 7 acres of yard and a woods with riding trails. My Dad and I just spent the last 2 days pruning trees.
Clearing and maintaining wide swathes of trees on both sides of highways to act as fire lines would be a lot cheaper than what these states are going through now. And, it would also be a lot less disruptive to some little endangered tree frogs habitat than all this is.
Sounds to me like we need alot more firefighters. More pensions, overtime pay, 3 million dollar water hauling trucks. Let's all be firefighters!
Good luck, most coments on this here are for Mitt-----and this new guy,---- Paul-----, (we are now on first name with super rich people--) just possibly the latter could take some from all that SS and Medicare I have paid for for nearly 50 Years---
Mr grover, the gop, the rushbo, & foxnews.com are ideologues. They have difficulty with the facts and the truth. It's why they have problems with science - the branch of knowledge dealing with the body of facts and truths. They have a war on science, the truth, and the facts.
Take these wild fires. Sooooo damaging and sometimes dangerous too. Could they be associated with co2 induced global warming. No. No. No way say mr grover, the gop, the rushbo, & foxnews.com. No way. Impossible. 98% of the scientists are wrong. Science and the truth and facts are bunk.
Ok. Ok. Then what are causing these fires. Well the rushbo used to say it was volcanoes but that was 10 years ago and he hardly says that anymore. Since the time a real volcano erupted and the planet began to cool.
Ok. Ok. So what needs to be done. Build the keystone xl pipeline and get those coal fires going. To double the co2 output of the country. And using thousands upon thousands of gallons of fresh water. Producing the most expensive gasoline ever for export only. Mr grover, the gop, & the rushbo, & foxnews.com want to put exxon back on top again. And you remember what it was like. Highest gas prices ever. Co2 emissions sooooo high that 1990 levels were thought to be impossible. Even though obama achieved those levels before anybody even knew.
I tell you it's all about ideology. Count of mr grover, the gop, the rushbo, & foxnews.com to twist, turn, lie, howl, and do everything that they can push their oil man kock's version of the bible ideology down your throat.
Well.....they "don't believe" in global warming (as if we're discussing the Easter Bunny).....so there you go.....you're screwed. The jury is still out on evolution (apparently, President Bush took a time machine ride back to 1795, just so he could watch some non-existent trial), and therefore, they don't have to "believe" that, either. It must be nice to just believe stuff, and then stick you fingers in your ears when facts are presented.
Hey, I have an idea- I'll just decide to "believe" I won the lottery...then I'll go to the lottery commission and demand my check.
Here's an interesting article. It's regarding a recent scientific journal publication on historical fire severity. It says these fires really aren't bigger or more severe as they have been. I'm assuming it's over a large scale vs. the last 50 yrs
Here's an interesting article. It's regarding a recent scientific journal publication on historical fire severity. It says these fires really aren't bigger or more severe as they have been. I'm assuming it's over a large scale vs. the last 50 yrs
marshal-2837579
Take these wild fires. Sooooo damaging and sometimes dangerous too. Could they be associated with co2 induced global warming. No. No. No way say mr grover, the gop, the rushbo, & foxnews.com. No way. Impossible. 98% of the scientists are wrong. Science and the truth and facts are bunk.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html
Global warming, or climate change, is a subject that shows no sign of cooling down.
Yes. Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.
• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.
Wow! Isn't that what we are going through right now? Makes you wonder doesn't it! Or is it still all just a pack of lies from big corporations? That also makes you wonder too.
You can find this on the National Geographic website using the link above.
I miss being a forest fire fighter. It was hard work, but it made up for the days and weeks of waiting around the station, and it paid my room and board for college.
But then, I was young when I did it, and I really miss being young.
C-15s have a load capacity of 170,900lbs (21,250 gallons). Don't tell the pilots they can't drop stuff on fires in canyons when they have a history of dropping armor and tanks on country roads in the mountains of Afganistan and Iraq. They can operate from airfields with 3,500 foot runways and 90 ft width. Their mission is to: "Provide services and support, which promote quality of life and project global power thorugh combat-proven airlift and airdrop". Squadrons are in New Jersey, South Caolina and Washington State.
The C-130 first flew in 1954. It is an admirable airframe and has seen service in Viet Nam and every other conflict since. The U.S. Forest Service developed the Modular Airborne FireFighting System for the C-130 in the 1970s, which allows regular aircraft to be temporarily converted to an airtanker for fighting wildfires.[25] In the late 1980s, 22 retired USAF C-130As were removed from storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and transferred to the U.S. Forest Service who then sold them to six private companies to be converted into air tankers (see U.S. Forest Service airtanker scandal). After one of these aircraft crashed due to wing separation in flight as a result of fatigue stress cracking, the entire fleet of C-130A air tankers was permanently grounded in 2004 (see 2002 airtanker crashes). C-130s have been used to spread chemical dispersants onto the massive oil slick in the Gulf Coast in 2010 (from wikpediia). I think United States Citizens in jeopardy of losing their property, lives and resources deserve state-of-the-art protection.
The C-130 is an excellent airframe but in order to be effective in these circumstances, there needs to be a coordinated drop by at least 5 or more planes in concert on a specific target. In regards to the Globemasters, five are capable of laying down 106,250 gallons of water or fire suppressants on a designated target at low level. That's what they train for and that is what they are capable of.
DC-6s have been and are being used throughout the United States by contractors to provide fire suppression support. They may not be currently being used on this particular fire, but they are one of the "standard" fire-fighting tools used by the Forest Service and they are even more inadequate than the C-130s. Especially when one load of suppressant is dumped at a time.
I am not arguing whether a DC-6 or a C-130 is being used in this case. I am saying that there are more effective tools available and that communities under siege by wildfires should have the best possible protection.
....but that would cost ME tax dollars.....to help people that are (pick one: lazy, brown, liberal, socialist....whatever). Don't tread on ME. It's all about ME......you can burn and die...
It doesn't really sound to me as if they are suffering from a lack of capacity. NIFC, formerly BIFC, has been the leader in addressing fires for several decades and I tend to think they have a handle on the situation. If you feel they are lacking, why not put in an application?
Having evacuated due to wildfires several times in California I can state that it is not much fun. Fortunately my home was still there when I returned by the soot and ash fallout was awful. Others were not nearly so lucky. Good luck to these folks.
My sympathies for all who are impacted by these fires. Having recently experienced the nightmare of the Waldo Cañon Fire, I can relate to what folks are experiencing. Two C130s were used extensively in fighting this fire, coupled with helicopters with water buckets to get into the smaller cañons in the area. Wind conditions played a significant role in dictating when the C130s were able to fly. A type one incident command team lead firefighters from many jurisdictions in an organized, well-coordinated effort that achieved containment. I cannot mention this fire without giving a shout out to these amazing folks who gave their best efforts in a challenging situation with unprecedented fire behavior.
The smoke from all the western fires has blown into our area for the last weeks and servers as a constant reminder of how serious these fires are. Living in an area famous for its Republican base which calls for limited government and lowered taxation, I can't even begin to tell you of comments asking folks who support these policies how they feel after needing the very services they swear to cut. Imagine the chagrin of having to admit one's home was saved by the very services demonized as "big government." We are left with the tough decision of deciding whether to fund the resources needed to continue fighting these massive wildfires, to include upgrading equipment such as the different types of aircraft mentioned by several commentators, or, to simply maintain the status quo and assume it won't be our home that burns.