STANLEY, Idaho — A drive along Highway 21 will take you to Stanley in the eastern shadow of Idaho's Sawtooth range.
Stanley is a town with just over a hundred residents. It swells with sightseers and trail seekers in the summertime.
"We get well thousands of tourists who are here to recreate in the mountains and rivers that were so close by," Tim Cron said.
Business owners try to meet their yearly budget in just four months. Cron has owned the Stanley Baking Co. for 21 years and the Sawtooth Hotel for the last 16 years.
"That's our main product, hospitality in this town," Cron said.
But a trip there these days, visitors get another view of Stanley...one that stands out almost as what's left of a summer, waylaid by wildfires.
"One night that we had a string band playing, and you could see flames on the ridge line behind it, and it was this, well, it was a surreal moment," Cron said.
"We've had wildfires almost every year, but never this close," Cron said.
In July the Sawtooth's were hit with two back-to-back wildfires. The Bench Lake Fire and The Wapiti Fire.
Although the town survived without losing any buildings, the damage was still done to local businesses.
"I felt like we lost momentum, and then it was hard to build it back up." Jim Slanetz, the owner of Kasino Club said. "There were moments that were, were good in there, but it just wasn't consistently solid business."
Slanetz has owned the Kasino Club for the past five years. This summer was the slowest yet, he said.
"I've talked to more firefighters in the last month than I probably have in the rest of my life," Slanetz said.
But even for the newest business owner in town, Tripp Costas, he knew the calm after the storm was unusual.
Costas said after the fire business was slow. This is Costas first summer owning the Rod and Gun after its owners of 53 years sold it. Costas had been visiting Stanley for several years before running the bar.
"It's like doing business on an island in a way," Costas said. "You're in this rugged mountain environment and that certainly presents its set of challenges."
Costas only experienced a month of typical seasonal business before the fires hit.
"It was just a steady 20% week over week increase over the previous week," Costas said. "Then it kind of plateaued at the Bench Lake Fire. Then we kind of started going up again, and then Wapiti came and really threw a curve ball at us."
Business dried up overnight, he said.
The question faced for all -- with smoke, evacuations, and no one coming to town... Was it worth staying open?
"It was both easy and hard," Cron said about the decision.
For Rod and Gun, it was worth staying open. But not for many others.
"In all our years doing this, we've never had to shutter the doors," Cron said. "We've kind of always persevered through wildfires."
The hotel and bakery closed for nine straight days in peak time during the fires. The Kasino Club - took it one day at a time.
"You don't know what the next day is going to bring," Slanetz said.
Some days he closed and wish he hadn't. Other he stayed opened and wish he had closed. He said it was impossible to find a strategy. He added most of his seasonal workers didn't stay the entire summer.
"It would just be smoked in and just almost apocalyptic," Slanetz said. "We got down to a skeleton crew."
Kasino Club hosts summer concerts. This year they had to cancel one of their bands.
"You want to stand by your obligations to them and we just didn't have the numbers, that I know we would have had, had not the fire been going on," Slanetz said.
In the end Kasino Club was about 25% down in sales compared to the summer before, Slanetz said.
"Highway 21 closes... Boise area plates are probably half our business in the summer," Slanetz said. "If you take away that you've cut it way down."
They were also battling misconceptions.
"I think there was a certain perception, even if it was well meaning, that the town was literally on fire," Costas said. "That we personally, were on fire, and it became a bit frustrating to battle back against that idea."
But once the smoke cleared, Costas described it like falling in love for the first time.
"Just missing those mountains for a month, even when you could see them, but it was through a smoky haze, but then just having them in all of their glory again," Costas said.
Each Cron, Slanetz and Costas used one word to sum up how they felt about the wildfire season - resilient.
Closing the books on this summer, Stanley is banking on reigniting the town's economic spark instead of more fires.
"Stanley can't wait for visitors to come back," Costas said. "And that's the simple solution to all of this, is come visit us."
Stanley businesses are getting ready to close for "slack time" where they take a break before the winter season. They're hoping people will come visit for winter to give them a boost.