BOISE, Idaho — The Valley Fire has come and gone but it has left a burn scar over a large area in the Boise Foothills. Now Idaho Fish and Game is ready to begin the long road to recovery.
- The Valley fire has left a large burn scar along the Boise foothills
- Over 6,000 acres of Fish and Game land was burned
- The agency has a plan to start the long recovery to restore habitat
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“The first thing we did when we got up here is what do we do with our equipment.” Ann Moser is a Wildlife Biologist for Idaho Fish and Game and remembers the first day after the Valley Fire broke out near the Boise River Wildlife Management Area off of Highway 21. A little over six thousand acres of Fish and Game land burned, land whose habitat is crucial for wildlife.
It may look like a field you would see on a farm anywhere in Idaho, but Fish and Game uses this field to see what works and what doesn't when they try to control vegetation after a fire.
“The first thing we’ll do is we will hire a contractor to do some aerial spraying so one of the biggest concerns we have in this fire is invasive plant species.” It's called Rush Skeleton weed and Cheetgrass.
Moser says with both of these plants, especially with this fire that went through fast, the seeds are probably still alive in the soil waiting for it to rain and they’ll be happy to green up as soon as it rains.”
The herds of mule deer and elk we showed you last week that migrate over and under Highway 2 will have to scrap for what they can find, and the snow will make it harder. Eventually, they may have to search for new winter grazing areas.
“Because what burned was really good habitat. There were some parts of that fire that hadn’t burned since 1959, so it was in real good condition.
Ann Moser told me it may take as long as 10 years for this hillside to get back to where it was before the Valley Fire.
