BOISE, Idaho — Wildfires may not be top of mind with the Treasure Valley's cool and rainy weather the past few days. But, it is the focus for some of our wildland firefighters right now.
Crews in the Boise National Forest are working on prescribed fire operations this fall and, they're making great progress.
"This fall has been a very good year for us," said Mike Williamson, the public affairs officer for the Boise National Forest. "Conditions have lined up such that we've met and actually exceeded our goals on Boise National Forest for prescribed burning."
Williamson said there are three general parameters wildfire managers examine to plan burns: weather conditions, ground conditions, and available firefighting resources.
Crews need some wind to move the smoke away from where people live but, it can't be too windy because then the fire might get out of control.
"Some of burning we've done up in Idaho City up in Cascade, we want to have it so that smoke gets up and out of the area and it isn't settling in the valleys," Williamson said.
On the ground, the grass and brush need to be dry enough to catch fire but, not so dry that there's a chance the fire could move outside the project area.
So, rain is a tricky factor. Williamson elaborated that the rain can be both a help and a hindrance to prescribed burning efforts.
"These last few days may have closed the door for the rest of the fall for some of our burning," he said. "But oddly enough, those big rains that we had at the end of August, those downpours that actually set the stage for sort of wetting things down enough to give us the opportunities and as early as early September to do the burning that we had done."
Williamson said you may still see smoke from pile burns. But, it likely won't be from the more widespread prescribed burns the Boise National Forest does.
"Fire on the landscape is a reality that we just can't escape. So we're just trying to take advantage of opportunities to do it under our terms to lessen the impact when we haven't. We're having large wildfires during the summer...
"We're really putting a lot more emphasis on reducing fuels to reduce the risk of wildfires to communities," he said.
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