After a slew of firings and deferred resignations last winter, the loss of federal workers left holes throughout the Northwest.
“When we get to peak fire season, it's kind of an all-hands-on-deck call, if you will,” said Jim Wimer, a fire prevention officer for the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests.
U.S. Forest Service employees who are normally in the office — like wildlife biologists or hydrologists — jumped in to help with fire information this summer, he said.
“We recruited lots of Forest Service employees into the fire information function, trying to train folks that have the interest into public information officer roles,” Wimer said, adding that the extra training helped many of the understaffed forest ranger stations in North Idaho get the word out about fire dangers to the public.
Workers even drove trucks with supplies to wildfires, often working overtime to help, he said Wimer.
Not only does it help local fire efforts, but it also gets people who work for the U.S. Forest Service in Northern Idaho out to other parts of the country to gain unique experiences and helps other forests that are in similar situations, Wimer said.
“We hope to keep it going and continue to get said employees more official training courses this winter and continue with on-the-job training moving into next fire season,” he said.
While Wimer and the rest of the U.S. Forest Service employees keep an eye on federal forests, the Idaho Department of Lands is responsible for protecting roughly nine million acres of state and private land. That’s according to Josh Harvey, the fire bureau chief for IDL.
This year, there have been 364 fires on land the agency manages, but not a lot of acreage burned, he said.
The Sunset Fire, which burned north of Coeur d’Alene, was one of the most devastating this season, he said.
“That fire made a six-mile run in a two day period,” Harvey said, causing road closures and evacuations.
Luckily, newer technology is helping agencies catch wildfires faster, Harvey said.
“The camera detection system has worked out really, really well for us,” he said. AI cameras stationed out in remote areas helped his team catch the Sunset Fire early.
IDL is looking to add 10 more cameras to the system through a partnership with the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, he said.
Despite cooler temperatures on the horizon, Harvey said there is still a risk for fires into the fall.
“Hunters will have a warming fire out there right, and I don’t blame ‘em, or campfires, and they get left unattended or they don’t get entirely put out,” Harvey said.
Agencies like IDL, which rely on college-age workers, have fewer firefighters when school is back in session. Harvey said that makes it a challenge to respond to wildfires this time of year.
Right now, agencies are hoping for days of rain or the first snowfall, which can help fizzle out the last fires of the summer, Wimer said.
