‘Significant’ lightning with Monday’s storms spark wildfires
Smoke from regional wildfires casts a haze over downtown Boise in late July. Even more fires were ignited Monday by lightning associated with storms that blew through Southwest Idaho. DARIN OSWALD doswald@idahostatesman.com
Hundreds of lightning strikes in Idaho ignited new wildfires Monday as storms passed through the region, according to the National Weather Service.
Officials said five new fires were burning in the Boise Bureau of Land Management area, nine in the Payette National Forest and 20 in the Boise National Forest.
“We’re stretched a little thin,” BLM Boise spokesperson Chad Cline said. “But nothing that we haven’t done before.”
The nation is at national wildland fire preparedness level five, the highest possible level, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Forecasts show above-normal potential for fires in most of Idaho for August and September.
Monday’s lightning outbreak was above the 80th percentile in terms of the amount recorded since record-keeping started in 2000, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Breidenbach.
“This was a very significant number of lightning strikes without much rain,” Breidenbach said. “It really wasn’t enough to stop the lightning from starting fires.”
Owyhee County led the way with 207 lightning strikes, according to the weather service, while Valley County had 89 and Boise County 73. Ada County, which saw a storm roll through western Boise, eastern Meridian and Eagle, had just eight strikes, and Canyon County had just four.
The Jump Fire was a new wildfire discovered Monday. It has burned 20,000 acres just west of U.S. 95 in the Jump Creek area of northern Owyhee County. The Central Idaho mountains or parts of Eastern Idaho could see thunderstorms later Tuesday, but the Treasure Valley will remain dry, hot and somewhat smoky for the next few days. There’s a chance for another round of thunderstorms Thursday or Friday, Breidenbach said.
In the Boise National Forest, officials are keeping an eye out for any fires that have gone undetected because of the high number of strikes. The vast majority of them are small, but new fires could stretch resources.
“The challenge is, there’s just so many fires. Some of them are in remote spots, tough to get folks there,” Boise National Forest spokesperson Mike Williamson said. “And the fact is that nationally and locally, we’re just stretched, and so we’re being very careful about how we prioritize the fires and which fires we send folks into.”