CROUCH, Idaho — As of Wednesday, the Middle Fork Complex is still 0% contained, but what does containment look like? Fire crews are hard at work fortifying fire lines and securing burn areas along the perimeter of the Bulldog Fire, in the Middle Fork Complex, with the goal of achieving containment.
- The Middle Fork Complex is made up of the Bulldog and Nellie fires, with a total of 338 personnel working the complex.
- You can find current closures in the Boise National Forest as a result of firefighting operations here.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“We have communities down to the west of us, so this is a very critical piece of line that this gets held," says Dustin Roper, the Division Supervisor of Division Tango on the Bulldog Fire.
Roper has been fighting fires for 19 seasons.
“I can tell you right now containment is going to take a long time on this fire, right," says Roper.
He tells me that containment is not a one-size-fits-all term and varies greatly depending on fire conditions and terrain.
“This line in particular that we’re standing on is a light dozer line that was put in on ridgetop to help contain the fire’s edge," says Roper.
This dozer line may look wide enough to stop a fire, but it's not secure enough for firefighters to call the area contained.
“So we use a lot of our senses right, smell, sight, hearing. You can kind of hear the difference in the woody material versus the dirt when you’re hitting it with your tool. Obviously, there’s sight, you can see that smoke there. You’re gonna be feeling some of these other areas, so this is gonna take a while to dig out," says Roper.
Roper explained that all of that smoldering woody material needs to be dug out of the ground and mixed with mineral soil until it is cool to the touch.
Crews use a combination of water and hand tools to do that.
“Once you have lines in place, so control features. Once you have those in place, containment happens after that when you are able to secure the fire’s edge, where you believe it will not come out again," added Roper. “But that could be 30 feet, that could be 60 feet, it could be 300 feet until you feel that line is secured and not going to get up in the treetops again throw embers across your line and cause you to have problems outside of your line."
