Until the now nearly 10,000-acre Valley Fire on the edge of Boise broke out last week, it appeared that the 2024 Idaho Wildfire Season was finally winding down.
So don’t roll up your fire hoses just yet. These late season fires aren’t out of the norm. In 2015, the Walker Fire burned over 6,000 acres near Idaho City, and it didn’t even start until October 10. This year, the Valley Fire sprouted in the foothills above Lucky Peak, threatening Southeast Boise, closing schools and Hwy. 21.
This year, fire season in Idaho was a roller coaster ride from the get-go, with fires challenging control efforts across the state. Unfortunately, humans contributed to more than half of the 300 fires that scorched our state, a growing problem as Idaho’s population continues to expand.
It wasn’t just human-caused fires though. A wet spring led to significant early season growth, coupled with extreme heat in July, and a series of lightning storms that sparked fires as tracked across the central part of the state. The Wapiti Fire that burned near Stanley started from the same lightning storm that prompted Idaho Power’s public safety power shut off that impacted over 9,000 households.
According to Idaho Power’s Chief Operating Officer, Adam Richins, who spoke at a wildfire-focused meeting of the Idaho Legislature’s Federalism Committee in late September, three of our four hottest summers in Idaho’s history have occurred in the last four years. He noted that this summer, we experienced 5 consecutive days of 105 degree temps, and 17 consecutive days of 100 degree temps. With extreme heat contributing to larger fires across the West, this summer Idaho saw the worst smoke in over two decades.
That lines up with global climate phenomenon, with the summer of 2024 topping the list as Earth’s Hottest Summer Ever Recorded. To boot, the 10 hottest years occurred between 2014-2023. And guess what…? It looks like 2024 is likely to top the list at #1.
Again, you don’t have to be an atmospheric scientist to know that extreme heat contributes to explosive fire conditions.
So where was the action this summer?
There were several notable fires in North Idaho, however the season’s main events were a series of fires that scorched a swath of southern Idaho, extending from an early season fire along the shores of iconic Redfish Lake, to explosive fires in the Boise and Payette National Forests that scorched over 100,000 acres on one day in September.
As of October 1, over 826,000 acres have burned in the Gem State in 2024, the most since 2012. The majority of those acres were in the Boise and Payette River mountains, extending from around Cascade and Emmett to Stanley.
Idaho sees big fires, with smaller losses
One of the things that makes Idaho fires different from some of the blazes in other states is that generally, we don’t see as many structures lost to the flames. Because fewer people live here.
Still, for the 38 homeowners in the Gwen Fire (near Julietta), that’s little solace.
Per a report from the State Fire Marshal it appears that over 50 homes were lost to wildfire in Idaho this year, four on the Texas (near Kendrick), 8 on the Wapiti (Grandjean/Stanley), and one each from the Paddock and Lava.
The scale of loss from wildfires can impact insurance rates, so while there could be some local impact on rates, it pales in comparison to the monetary loss from recent fires in Oregon, California, Hawaii, and elsewhere. On the Camp Fire in 2018, over 13,500 homes were lost.
Fires cost, but who pays?
The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have the largest firefighting operations in the state, and cover the largest proportion of wildfire costs. It often takes months to sort out the final costs for federal fire suppression, but the 5-year national average is just shy of $3 billion per year.
The Idaho Department of Lands also has responsibility for several million acres of lands, and they estimate the state’s share of suppression costs for this year at ~$51 million. That effectively drains their wildfire reserve account, so we expect to see a request during the next legislative session to refill the coffers.
Large fire incidents also often involve local, tribal, municipal, and volunteer fire departments, which are often reimbursed through state emergency management funds from FEMA, so many of those final costs have yet to be tallied. Still, even if they are reimbursed, the impacts from these fires can take a toll on any fire service, financially, as well as physically and mentally.
So little time, so much blame
While everyone knows that lightning, weather, and fires are unpredictable, it appears that some people want to play the “blame game.”
At the Idaho Legislature’s September 25, 2024 Federalism Committee, it was clear who’d be on the receiving end of that blame. The title of the hearing was “Federal Land Management by Incineration.”
At the hearing, committee co-chairs Rep. Judy Boyle (R-Midvale) and Sen. Van Burtenshaw (R-Terreton) gave time to speaker after speaker who laid the blame squarely at the feet of the federal government.
The most surprising thing was that they didn’t even invite speakers from the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, or the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center. With the exception of one question from Sen. Rick Just (D-Boise), there was no discussion of climate change either.
Most of the invited speakers suggested that the federal government wasn’t doing enough to aggressively fight fire, and that was the root cause of the destructive fire season of 2024. As a result, they suggested that Idahoans should be deputized by the federal government to rush into wildfires with bulldozers and heavy equipment. With proper training, there’s no doubt that volunteers can support fire suppression efforts, however rugged terrain coupled with explosive fire risk warrants caution, as we saw this year with the Lava Fire’s explosive growth.
Firefighters have learned through difficult lessons from Yarnell Hill, Storm King Mountain, and the Thirtymile Fire, among many others. During these tragic incidents, firefighters were quickly overwhelmed by unpredictable fire behavior, and many of the safety precautions that firefighters take today are based on the lessons learned from those tragedies.
While ICL and many others recognize that initial attack is a critical component of firefighting operations, the explosive nature of climate-driven fires poses extreme risks to firefighters. Managing fires indirectly, and utilizing backfires and containment strategies have been proven to be effective at both controlling fires and keeping firefighters safe.
And it’s worth remembering that firefighters are heroes, but not magicians. There have been, and always will be, a small percentage of fires that escape containment efforts and can lead to large devastating events when combined with dry fuels and high winds.
So, what CAN we do about wildfire?
The newest wildfire research recognizes that even the most aggressive tactics can’t stop all wildfires, and in fact we shouldn’t, because it plays a crucial role in fire-adapted ecosystems. But we can prevent homes from burning with improved community planning. Indeed, the Governor’s new wildfire report recommends updating building codes in the wildland-urban interface, an issue ICL has long advocated with the state’s Building Code Board.
With basic maintenance and improvements to our gutters, roofs, and the immediate area surrounding our homes, we can significantly decrease the likelihood of home ignition. Many other states have already adopted improved wildfire building codes, and some developers in Idaho are already including some of these common-sense best practices.
While we don’t know where the fires will start, we can control how we build our communities and homes. With fire-safe planning, we can safeguard firefighters and citizens alike.
We can also take steps to make our communities and lands more resilient to fires, so that when they do burn, the negative effects can be reduced. ICL is an active member of forest and rangeland collaborative efforts across the state supporting efforts to safely reintroduce prescribed fire, reduce invasive weeds, thin overly dense forests, and restore native species.
Finally, as we come face to face with the flames, we must address the root causes of climate change, including increasing renewables, and reducing emissions. In the meantime, we need to adapt to the new reality of wildfire. And we need to work that much harder to protect our communities and lands. Anything that detracts from that is part of the problem, not part of the solution.