Bighorn Let It Burn Fire
Location: ~36 mi W of Salmon, Valley Co. ID
Specific Location: Salmon-Challis NF, Big Creek, Waterfall Creek, Middle Fork Salmon River. Lat 45° 6´ 4″ Lon 114° 44´ 23″
Date of Origin: 07/25/2010
Cause: Lightning
Situation as of 08/12/2010 2:45 pm
Personnel: 10
Size: 1,128 acres
Percent Contained: 0%
Will be demobbing the Wildland Fire Module Saturday off the fire.
***************
Situation as of 08/03/2010 5:30 pm
Personnel: 21
Size: 490 acres
Percent Contained: 0%
Sending a squad from the Lewis & Clark Wildland Fire Module down river to assess camps.
***************
Situation as of 08/02/2010 4:00 pm
Personnel: 9?
Size: 361 acres
Percent Contained: 0%
Planning on inserting two FOBS and a Wildland Fire module [Let It Burn team].
***************
Situation as of 07/30/2010 6:00 pm
Personnel: 0
Size: 500 acres
Percent Contained: 0%
Taylor Ranch threatened. River users at risk.
by Dennis H.
I recently saw an Outdoor Idaho show on OPB, which we see when Oregon Field Guide is taking a break, that showed a debris torrent from a side stream tributary that had totally blocked the Salmon, and stranded over 75 rafters for a day or so before the USFS showed up, and found that in some arcane interpretation of their handbook on Wilderness, they were allowed to use explosives to blow the jam. It worked, and the rafters were on their way. And, a whole lot of drift was sent down stream. The side trib was a totally destroyed habitat for fish and the watershed was unable to receive even a summer thunder storm due to lack of vegetation due to excessive fire in its immediate past. Not a benign event.
Reply: We reported on the Salmon jam blam when it happened:
Explosions Rock Wilderness Area, Thrill-Seekers Freed From Logjam
SOS Forests, July 28th, 2006 [here]
The untamed wilderness that holds the River of No Return had to be violated with dynamite Wednesday.
It seems that 200 brave souls who dared to test themselves against the untrammeled wild got their neoprene rafts hung up in a logjam. After numerous cell phone calls and endless cups of camp cappuccino, the Federal government finally sent in “teams of explosives technicians” to blow the offending logjam to smithereens. Your tax dollars at work. …
Has enough of the Middle Fork burned in the last 8 years? Maybe this one should be put out before there is no forest left around the Middle Fork!