STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS BY DIANE PEAVEY

The Sharps Fire is now twice the size of San Francisco, Long Beach, Oakland and Minneapolis.

And, at 100 square miles, it’s larger than the cities of Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee and Sacramento.

Gusty winds from the southwest pushed the fire further north towards Swede Peak and Mormon Hill Friday afternoon, as the fire grew 6,000 acres to 63,901 acres.

The area is steep and rugged—not an easy place to build a fire line.

But air tankers spent Saturday dropping retardant in an area they hope to build a fire line today—a pretreatment for bulldozer work near Mormon Hill.

“It’s not for sure, but they were working on a contingency plan Saturday,” said Fire Information Officer Lori Iverson.

Iverson toured the northeast corner on Saturday. She spotted no active flames but saw plenty of smoke. She also saw some helicopters making drops.

Firefighters were benefitted by lighter southwest winds and cooler temperatures on Saturday. And cool temperatures in the 70s should help today, although the early morning thunderstorm and feisty winds that moved through the area certainly didn't help.

Fire fighters have contained the southern portion of the fire near the Little Wood Reservoir and the southern portion of the east side, said Fire Information Officer Anne Jeffery. And they’ve built a line on the west side near Hailey and neighborhoods to the north that are currently under pre-evacuation order.

But they have not declared it contained because there are so many hot spots near that line.

“There’s still a chance that wind could blow embers over the line so firefighters spent Saturday mopping the hot spots, which included smoldering areas and some small flames,” Jeffery said.

The fire is nearly half the size of the 2013 Beaver Creek Fire, which burned 114,900 acres in a wide swath that included portions of Deer Creek, Greenhorn, Dollarhide Summit and the slopes lining Baker Creek Road.

About 495 firefighters from all over the West have converged on this fire, which is the top priority in the Great Basin region.

Bellevue resident Ryan M. Jensen, 35, admitted to starting the fire Sunday morning by shooting at an exploding target, which is illegal on public lands.

At least five fires have been started by exploding targets this past month in East Idaho, including one near Rexburg. Since 2015 more than 30 percent of wildfire initiation in Idaho were attributed to exploding targets and ammunition sparking off rocks and metal targets.

On Friday the Bureau of Land Management mobilized a Wildland Fire Prevention Education Team to raise awareness of Idaho’s wildfire threat from target shooting. The team, which will concentrate its efforts around the Twin Falls area initially, will emphasize the Shoot Responsibly-Idaho statewide initiative campaign.

Since January 2018, the BLM has responded to 70 human-caused wildfires, said Team Lead Zachary Ellinger.

Valley residents have been on edge for years about the possibility of a fire in the East Fork area, as that area hasn’t burned in years. What made this one particularly hard to take was that this one was caused by someone who disregarded laws governing explosive targets, rather than lightning which caused the Castle Rock and Beaver Creek fires.

And there was plenty of material to burn, thanks to a wet spring that caused grass to grow two and three feet high, followed by a bone-dry July.

The Northern Great Basin Fuels and Fire Behavior published this week noted that there is significant carryover of fuels from the 2017 fire season in southern Idaho, with multiple new crops of cheat grass, thanks to the wet 2018 spring.

Fuel loading is between 200 and 300 percent of average in many areas, the report said. And these dry fine fuels--along with near-record low 100-hour and 1,000-hour fuel moisture--will drive extreme fire behavior, it added.

The report added that several fires have grown more than 20,000 acres over 24 hours. The Sharps Fire grew very quickly as well, exploding to 27,000 acres from 3,000 acres in its first 24 hours. It grew to more than 50,000 acres over the next two days.

The 2007 Castle Rock Fire, by contrast, burned 48,520 acres of backcountry over 20 days.

Pre-evacuation notices for some residents of Hailey and homeowners north of Hailey have been very much in the minds of people.

“My wife brought the dog with her to Ketchum today just in case,” said Community School teacher Scott Runkel.

Jeff Halligan announced this week that he was having to cancel the pilot youth program Idaho Trails Association was planning to conduct, rebuilding trails in the area of the Sharps Fire.

And the Ketchum Ranger District and Idaho Conservation Corps trail crews that have been rebuilding Timber Draw and Federal Gulch trails off East Fork are crossing their fingers that the fire doesn’t wreck the work they just completed.

Greg Servheen, wildlife program coordinator for Idaho Fish and Game, told those attending the Sun Valley Forum this week that small fires are beneficial for big game but that anything that burns sagebrush is bad for sage grouse.

“And there are no small sagebrush fires,” he added.