FIRES

2000 was a bad fire year along the Salmon

Writer Pete Zimowsky visits the Middle Fork after the fires

Wild fires are the ignition key that allows the cycle of growth and regeneration to continue; hardly a year goes by without a forest fire somewhere in the Salmon River country.

But by any measurement, the fires of 2000 were extraordinary. Fires blackened 1.3 million acres in Idaho. In the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, more than 500,000 acres burned, more than in any single year in the last century.

Why? One of the main reasons is that, for decades, we have aggressively fought fires, leaving a forest with just too much fuel. Then all it takes is a dry, hot summer, together with lightning storms in August.

Until we deal with the over abundance of forest fuels, fire officials say, we can expect more of the same next summer.