Idaho Wildfires and Smokey Skies, Here They Come
Last year the entire west coast was on fire. Well it seemed that way anyway. Oregon, Washington, California and Idaho all had devastating burns last year. With Hundreds losing their homes and even some lives being lost. Well if you haven't noticed we are in quite the heatwave along with the rest of the west and that is not going to help at all as fire season is getting fully underway. There are already fires burning in California that are expecting to bring smoke to right over to us in Idaho in the coming days and weeks.
According KIVITV spoke with Nick Nausler, National Interagency Fire Center Predictive Services, who said, “Our current situation, we are pretty busy we went to PL-4 about 10 days ago. I believe it was June 22. On a scale of 1 to 5, we are on the second-highest level. We have active fires in every western region.”
He continued with, “Over 91 percent of the west is in drought. Almost 56 percent are in the highest two categories, and you compare this to a year ago we have almost doubled the amount of area in drought."
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than 300 human-caused wildfires have burned more than 8,800 acres of land in the Gem State already this year alone. Please be careful!
Josh Harvey, The Idaho Department of Lands Fire Management Bureau Chief said, "Please recreate responsibly, protect our firefighters, protect our natural resources, know where you are at, and be prepared."
"Nearly 9 out of 10 wildfires are human-caused," Ben Newburn, U.S Forest Service Intermountain Region Director of Fire and Aviation Management said. "Last year we saw a dramatic increase in visitation to our public lands resulting in a significant increase in human-caused fires, including abandoned and escaped campfires. These fires are 100 percent preventable.”
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