IDAHO, USA — The Hayden Fire in North Central Idaho has not grown in the past 24 hours. Officials say the fire activity is minimal today. While the recent cooler weather has helped with that, landowners in that area are also helping fire efforts.
"We'd like to send a big thank you to landowners in the area, that have let us build a dozer line on their property," said Piper Brandt, Public Information Officer, Great Basin Team 4.
In a news release this week, fire officials said landowners also let firefighters stage their operations on private property.
"Private land is often adjacent to our public lands and sometimes we have to access those. Fire doesn't see boundaries. So, it'll burn all. So, we collaborate with them to go on their property, through their property, to help suppress the fires and in every incident," Elden Alexander, the Liaison Officer with Great Basin Team 4 said.
He added that, in his experience, it's rare that a landowner won't let firefighters onto their property, since firefighters' efforts often result in people's property being protected.
Drones are very useful in fire operations. Alexander said they have thermal cameras that allow crews to see the extent of fires and fire activity.
"The videos and still pictures that it can take helps us get a 360-degree view of these fires," he said. "We knew there were missing cattle, which is an incredible value to ranchers and important to their livelihood."
During normal fire operations, drone operators were tasked with looking for missing cattle and marking them.
Once drone operators mark where the cattle are, they pass that information along to ranchers.
"They (ranchers) got the heads up, they felt with those locations that the cattle were in a good spot for right now. They felt good, leaving them where they were at, they were safe and outside the immediate fire threat area," Alexander said. "You know, something as simple as Idaho cattle ranchers being able to utilize public lands for grazing, meeting the technology of drones going up there; it's pretty neat that we're able to combine those two and make something positive happen out of something not so positive."
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