| Place a Classified | Subscribe today | July 10, 2009 |
|
|
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Fire threatens home
Atomic City - A sage and juniper wildfire that started at about 5:30 p.m. yesterday burned hot and fast and quickly engulfed a butte from which KISU transmits its television signal to Southeast Idaho.
The Twin Buttes fire also forced the Wednesday night closure of U.S. Highway 20 from its junction with Highway 26 to Idaho Falls. Efforts to fight the fire also led to the closure of the same stretch of highway Thursday afternoon. The steep, flat-topped East Butte is one of the Twin Buttes on the edge of Idaho National Laboratory land, about six miles northeast of Atomic City. Located in the center of the southern Snake River Valley, East Butte is the perfect location from which to broadcast and receive radio, TV, cell phone and air traffic control signals.
There are dozens of communication towers on top of the hill, and several of the power lines, including the main power line feeding the towers, burned Wednesday evening. ''Most of the other stations in town and Idaho Falls have backup generators. We do not,'' said Kim Neilsen, KISU station manager. ''We do not know when power will be restored. Hopefully, it sounds like some time tomorrow or the next day we should have power back up again.''
After encircling the butte Wednesday evening, the fire burned across the prairie toward the east with great alacrity, fanned by 16 to 25 mph wind gusts. And in a testimony to the dryness of the surrounding desert, it also blazed back into the wind toward the west, at a slower clip. The eastern flank of the fire was the big concern for authorities Wednesday night and all day Thursday as it threatened the Hall family farm and residence, including their cattle, farming equipment, hay and propane tanks.
Firefighters were out on the farm from the start of the fire, working to ensure that it remained protected. ''The fire experts went out and looked at their buildings, and they feel like they can burn around them to secure them,'' said Lynn Ballard, Eastern Idaho Interagency Fire Center spokesman.
The Halls voluntarily evacuated the site Thursday morning, Ballard said. The Journal was unable to reach them for comment. Firefighters used Highway 20 to form the northern containment boundary of the blaze. Fearing the fire might jump the highway, officials started their own prescribed burnout Wednesday night along the southern side of the road and burned it south toward the wildfire.
Two large air tankers dumped retardant on the blaze all day Thursday as Bureau of Land Management crews dug the containment line. Ballard reiterated that this summer has been dry earlier than what is historically common for the region. Expecting the wildfire season to get worse before it gets better, Ballard said that it's starting raise concerns for our local ecosystem, as well as for livestock owners.
''Sometimes it's good to burn this off and to regenerate, but one of the concerns you're going to have (in a heavy wildfire season when too much burns) is summer range for livestock and winter range for wildlife,'' Ballard said. The Twin Buttes fire was 80 percent contained as of 6 p.m. Thursday and had burned more than 4,800 acres. The containment line and prescribed burnout was complete as of 6 p.m.
No INL facilities were threatened by the blaze. Authorities were still assessing the fire damage to communications equipment atop the East Butte, according to a Department of Energy press release. The BLM crews continued to work until 9 p.m., when INL crews took over to fight the blaze over night.
Authorities expect to have the fire completely contained by Friday or Saturday. By Chris Merrill cmerrill@journalnet.com Article RatingReader CommentsSubmit a CommentCommenting RulesWe encourage your feedback and dialog. All comments are subject to deletion by our Web staff.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
Comment
Rate
Report a Comment
