Tonight (Tuesday) we were able to speak with Weiser’s Fire Chief Tim Atwood before he headed back out to work the fires that have been filling our little valley with smoke. Atwood shared, “Yesterday (Monday) we had a significant fire start on the east side of Interstate 84 near Durkee, so a separate fire has now taken off. The Durkee fire and Cow (Valley) fire have now burned together and they are managing all this now as a complex.” With this new development Atwood shared that the complex is currently the largest in the nation.
Chief Atwood is currently the only resource from Weiser on this fire and he is part of one of the Strike Teams from Idaho. “We have trucks from Kuna, Indian Valley, Melba, Nampa and New Plymouth, with a mix of firefighters from around the valley,” stated Atwood. His Strike Team has been working the fire for the last four days, “We are working on structure protection, so we are doing everything from prepping structures if the fire should come to it, to last night we directed a dozer and we did some burning off for a fire line,” he stated.
Before heading off to work the fire Chief Atwood shared, “This is a very big fire and the weather is controlling where it goes and all the fire crews are doing all they can to just direct it a little bit. We are hoping to get a break in the weather.” At the time of this interview Atwood had said the weather was calling for 75 mile an hour winds the next day (Wednesday).
As of Tuesdays update the following is the acres the fires have consumed:
Durkee Fire: (Started July 17 by lightning) 239,255 acres 0% contained
Cow Valley Fire: (Started July 11 by human) 133,490 acres 78% contained
Bonita Fire: (Started July 11 by human) 2,727 acres 90% contained
East of I-84: As of this interview there was not much information about the fire that started on the east side of I-84, but officials said there were 6 lightning starts. The new larger fire, named Thompson Fire is estimated to have burned 10,000 acres as of Tuesday morning.
