Fire Management in Southwest Idaho

Home » » Fire Management in Southwest Idaho

Fire Management in Southwest Idaho

Date: 06/17/2022     State: ID     Issues: Climate, Fire, Wild Lands     Partners: Idaho Conservation League, Idaho Prescribed Fire Council Airport Origin : Boise    

Mission


Conduct an overflight of Idaho's number one fire-risk area to help develop a fire-management plan for the region and to create an aerial video to encourage cohesive cross-boundary fire suppression between the state and private landowners.


With increasingly warm temperatures and less rainfall, fires pose intense risk to communities, ecosystems and wildlife. Based on a study of high-risk firesheds, the Forest Service recently selected the area between Boise, Idaho City, and McCall as the number one priority landscape in Idaho and number eleven in the nation. The Forest Service has allocated $17 million for fuel reduction efforts in these high priority Southwest Idaho areas. The Idaho Conservation League, Idaho Forest Restoration Partnership, Boise Forest Coalition, and other groups are bringing stakeholders together to increase the pace and scale of effective forest restoration.


Our overflight examined fuel reduction projects near Idaho City at Bogus Basin, Sinker Creek-Boise Ridge, and Clear Creek. These forest restoration projects, through thinning, prescribed fire, and other tactics, will reduce exposure of people, communities, and natural resources to the risk of catastrophic wildlife. Much of these forests are intermixed parcels of publicly and privately owned land. A collaborative of groups is working to educate and advocate on the importance of voluntary action by private landowners to reduce fuels on their properties in high fire danger areas. Creating cross-boundary partnerships with private landowners is critical to reduce hazardous fuels and create defensible space around homes to protect the greater forest landscape, private property, and people.





Flight Images

Flight Location