SOUTH BOISE, Idaho — Western wildfires are regaining traction after lightning strikes and windy conditions sparked new fires and fueled existing ones. The Lava Fire burning southwest of Cascade Reservoir grew extremely quickly Sunday, forcing fire crews to evacuate off the mountain and move their fire camp.
- About 350 personnel are assigned to fight the Lava Fire.
- The country-wide National Fire Preparedness Level increased back to the maximum—level 5. That means national resources are heavily committed to fires.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
After a few weeks of firefighting progress across the US, the country downgraded from National Preparedness level 5 - the highest level possible, to level 4. However, after weekend storms and increased fire activity, the National Preparedness Level was increased back to the maximum — level 5.
"Fire season really picked up again," says Stanton Florea with NIFC.
He tells me a change of conditions like this hasn't happened in decades.
"You know we went back up to, from preparedness level 4 back up to 5, and it had been more than 20 years since that's happened," says Florea.
Florea tells me they were in the process of relieving firefighters and personnel working fires, but that quickly changed.
"A month ago we had around 30,000 people mobilized nationally, which was really the height of the season. We were down to less than 15,000, so half of that, less than a week ago. But over the last 4 or 5 days we've gone back up around 6,000 to around 21,000 folks nationally," added Florea.
The Lava Fire, burning southwest of Cascade Reservoir was fueled by windy conditions on Sunday, soaring to more than 47,000 acres — even forcing firefighter to evacuate the mountain and move their fire camp.
"That fire itself created its own lightning and it grew quite a bit," says Brian Lawatch, with the Boise National Forest.
He tells me that weather conditions created the perfect storm for fire growth.
"You know that combination of lightning coming in and then high temperatures, low humidity, and wind can make it difficult to fight fires," says Lawatch. "A fire like this that was fast growing we're not going to try to suppress it head-on, we're going to see where we can get the most bang for our buck, see how we can protect property, use current existing infrastructure like roads and other areas that don't have as much vegetation."
Homeowners in the area are under evacuation orders.
Clouds forming over the fire could be seen from across the Treasure Valley.
