As fire crews battle major fires in central Idaho, cooler temperatures and rain could provide some relief to containment efforts.
- Fire crews are working to stop major fires near central Idaho
- Heavier timber within the fire continues to burn
- Over 45,000 acres have burned in the Wapiti Fire
- Structure protection and safety are top priorities
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
I'm your neighborhood reporter Jessica Davis talking with weather experts about cool temperatures and their effect on wildfires in the area.
"Just the cooler more moist conditions will certainly slow down the fire," says David Groenert, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Fire crews are working tirelessly to stop the spread of major fires near Central Idaho.
David Groenert is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
He says cooler temps and the chance of rain could potentially slow down the spread.
"The mountains of Central Idaho they're definitely going to see some cooler weather especially Saturday and Sunday are going to be the coldest days. We've seen temperatures in the 30's in the mountain spots so it's certainly cooler and more moist," says Groenert.
While the cooler more moist weather has calmed fire behavior on the Wapiti fire. Mike De Fries with Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team 1 says that heavier timber within the fire, continues to burn.
De fries added, "There's still some significant fire activity in the fire area so it would take a whole lot more really impact those thousand-hour fuels as we call them."
Over 45,000 acres have burned in the Wapiti fire, according to Incident Management Team 1.
The activity is growing the most in the Northeastern corner across Stanley Lake and crossing Highway 21 to the North.
With low winds, crews have been going around the fire area to establish structure protection to people's homes property and infrastructure.
De Fries says, "setting up water from big portable ponds, that gets pumped through hose to subdivisions so that sprinkler systems can be set up that also include mitigating removing flammable items."
Besides containing the fire, the top priority is safety for the public and fire crews.
On Sunday August 25th at 6 P.M. there will be Wapiti fire community meeting at the Stanley community building.
"We've got not this fire but many on the landscape right now so we're going to do everything we can to safely manage this fire, take suppressing actions and make sure that we protect people's property and other key infrastructure all within this area," says De Fries.
Stay with Idaho News Six on air and online as we bring you the latest happening with wildfires across the area.
