STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFFERY LUBECK

Photographer Jeffery Lubeck was driving home to his cabin in Iron Creek on Sept. 4 when he crested Galena Summit and saw huge flames spiking across a landscape he had come to cherish.

The scene around Smiley Creek Lodge was one of bedlam as homeowners in the area streamed onto Highway 75, their cars and trucks packed with whatever they could grab to evacuate with. Overshadowing all was a mountainous column of smoke that poured into the sky.

“It was amazing and frightening how quickly the Ross Fork Fire could move,” said Lubeck. “Area ranger Kirk Flannigan said it was the perfect storm—the humidity had dropped to 6 percent, which is Death Valley kind of humidity, temperatures were in the high 80s and the winds kicked in at the same time.  And that created the blowup.”

Stuck on the Stanley side of the pass with the highway closed, Lubeck watched the smoke from his cabin near Stanley and worried. Then he decided to do what he did when the Beaver Creek Fire roared across mountainsides around Hailey and Ketchum in 2013—he decided to document what was happening with his camera.

Lubeck will show some of the 200-plus photos he took at his MESH Gallery, 351 N. Leadville Ave., in Ketchum from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16. The exhibition, titled “The Ross Fork Fire—Before, During and After.” features photographs of flames lapping at the edge of Alturas Lake, dramatic orange skies, roiling smoke in 10 shades of dark and grey, the fire camp that took root across from Smiley Creek Lodge and photographs of firefighters removing brush and performing other duties.

Visitors can view the images and maps on display and talk with firefighters and others while enjoying beverages and nibbles.

Then at 6:30 p.m. Flannigan and some of the firefighters who fought the fire will discuss their experience. Avalanche forecaster Chris Lundy will discuss the potential for avalanches this winter in the burned area, which was popular with backcountry skiers. And a climatologist will discuss how the burn could impact this spring’s runoff.

Proceeds from the sale of any of the Ross Fork images, other MESH Art Fine Art images and books will be donated to the Smiley Creek Rural Fire Department.

Lubeck endured smoke so heavy that he couldn’t see the front hood of his truck at one point. Forest Service officials allowed him to go back into every drainage affected by the fire, including the Salmon River headwaters, Smiley Creek and Little and Big Beaver creeks.

He will show some before-and-after shots of favorite spots. Among them, a photograph he took of the Sawmill Creek cabin at the bottom of Abe’s Armchair in 2012 juxtaposed with a photograph showing how the cabin emerged untouched from the fire even as the landscape around it burned.

He will show a photograph depicting the lush green around the Little Beaver Creek campground and pond—the first place he camped in Idaho in the early 1980s. Then he will show what it looks like now.

He also will also take people on a photographic journey in which he started from the pond near Little Beaver Creek and hiked up along ridgeline eventually looking down on Alturas Lake.

“I took photos as I walked across so I will walk people across the area with those photographs,” he said.

Lubeck documented many of the sites that burned in the 110,000-acre Beaver Creek Fire, following them up with photographs of the growth that occurred in subsequent years. That fire consumed more grass lands and hiking and biking trails than did the Ross Fork Fire, he said.

The 38,000-acre Ross Fork Fire burned in more of a mosaic pattern in which the fire did not scorch through an area completely but left some green trees among the burned trees. It affected more roads and off-road vehicle areas than the Beaver Creek Fire, he said.

“What really struck me about the Ross Fork Fire was the randomness of things. You’d see where something got absolutely cooked and 50 yards away everything was untouched. You look at the north side beach at Alturas Lake where the boat ramp is and it’s untouched. You look on the south side and, while you’d think it would be completely torched, but it isn’t.

“This is just nature and the way it works, and we’re fortunate it wasn’t worse.”