TIPANUK, Idaho – Federal officials called in firefighters from Australia and New Zealand on Friday to shore up thin fire lines after wind-whipped wildfires leveled at least four homes on the southwestern Idaho range.
“We can always rebuild,” Gene Kastner said Friday afternoon as he and family members hauled away the charred remains of his home, destroyed Thursday night when flames driven by 50 mph winds roared through. “I lost my house and all our clothes and shoes and rifles and some movies and things, but they still have them in the stores.”
Fire managers across the region were clamoring for additional crew members as range and timber fires were sparked by dry lightning and pushed by hot winds. In the Idaho Sawtooths, the 21-square-mile Potato fire exploded, with flames reaching more than 100 feet skyward.
“We have strong, sustained winds and it’s really cooking,” said David Eaker, one of 780 federal firefighters assigned to the Potato fire, which has cost $6.6 million to fight but is still nearly two weeks away from estimated containment. “Our resources are stretched very thin and it’s tough to find additional help because of all the activity.”
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise was tracking 64 active large fires across the western U.S. on Friday. Idaho and Oregon each had 10 large fires, followed by Montana with eight and California with seven.
With no additional U.S. crews or resources available, fire center officials used a long-standing agreement with Australia and New Zealand to bring in nearly 50 foreign reinforcements that began arriving in Boise on Friday for orientation and were expected to see duty on fires lines early next week.
It’s the first time since 2003 that the U.S. has needed to augment its force of more than 24,000 federal firefighters with foreign allies.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials were scrambling for help Friday to protect homes from 11 wildfires sparked by downed power lines and lightning Thursday night in southwestern Idaho.
The two-square-mile Discovery fire burned one home and numerous ranch buildings. Residents of the farming communities of Ola and Sweet were evacuated early Friday morning, and crews were trying to set up defenses around homes ahead of advancing flames.
The eight-square-mile Ditto Rest fire, which destroyed Kastner’s home and two others in Tipanuk, jumped a nearby access road.
The wind was so strong that the quick-moving flames spiraled like a tornado zigzagging across the grassland, Kastner said. The erratic fire movement spared Kastner’s Ford Bronco and Oldsmobile parked out front, but incinerated his home.
Kastner’s two sons were in the house when the flames moved in and they fled when the fire reached a pickup truck about 150 yards away. Less than three minutes later, the home was engulfed, they said.
As he shoveled the ashes, Kastner said all he has left are the clothes on his back and some fishing poles in his truck.
“We can replace it all one piece at a time,” he said. “My boys and I are carpenters by trade. I’m just happy none of us got hurt.”
Weather is helping fire crews rein in wildfires around Washington, including two that have consumed 78,504 acres in the north-central Chewuch Valley.
The Tripod and Spur Peak fires were 20 percent contained Friday, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Robin DeMario. A quarter-inch of rain Thursday helped, and cooler temperatures and higher humidity Friday were expected to reduce flames, she said.
State Lands Commissioner Donald Sutherland flew over the fires Friday. He said the visit made him feel more comfortable about the fire crews’ battle. “They’ve got it figured out pretty good,” he said. “Obviously the weather’s unpredictable.”
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