BOISE, Idaho – The nation’s wildfire preparedness was raised to its highest level Thursday as dozens of new fires started in the bone-dry West, including a rapidly growing blaze on the grounds of the Idaho National Laboratory.
The West had been at level four for only a few weeks when officials decided to raise it to level five, effective Thursday.

“It’s driven by a couple of things: The number of large fires we have, and also the fires are occurring in several states and in several geographic areas,” said Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center. “The resources we have are being stretched thin.”

The change allows fire managers to request help from international crews, and National Guard units could be mobilized. On Thursday, fire center spokesman Ken Frederick said new crews were arriving in the Pacific Northwest from Alaska and the Southeast.

Choppers Needed

Firefighters in the area critically need medium-sized helicopters, he said. With 23 uncontained large fires or fire complexes in Nevada, Utah and Idaho, there aren’t enough contractor-supplied helicopters to go around, he said.

About 15,000 U.S. firefighters were already battling nearly 70 fires bigger than 100 acres in 12 states. The level was raised as dry lightning blasted and sparked dozens of new blazes in the West, including more than 1,000 new fires since Monday, Eardley said. Thursday morning brought slightly lower temperatures in the Northwest, Frederick said, but the break wasn’t expected to last long. Dry, windy weather, temperatures over 100 and
thunderstorms were forecast for the next seven days, he said.

A new wildfire that started Wednesday evening on the Idaho National Laboratory grounds quickly swept across nearly 15 square miles or 9,500 acres of sagebrush and grassland at the 890-square-mile nuclear research area in the southeast Idaho desert. Its cause was not known, said John Epperson, an INL spokesman.

No INL facilities were in immediate danger, but the lab’s 700 employees in the building nearest the fire were told to stay home Thursday. Other facilities at the lab, which employs about 3,600 workers, remained open. Fire crews set a backburn to keep the fire from jumping the highway and “that appears to be working,” INL spokesman Ethan Huffman said late Wednesday night. The blaze was about 10 percent contained.

The nearest INL facility is the Materials and Fuels Complex, roughly five miles northeast of the edge of the fire and on the other side of the highway. Huffman described the complex as an area of research in nuclear reactor fuel development. He said the metal-roofed complex was surrounded by vast sand buffers and the wildfire posed no
danger to it, but operations were suspended Thursday and the workers told to stay home.