Dust, smoke cause chain-reaction crash

Friday's fire near Tipanuk caused a major chain-reaction crash involving multiple vehicles on I-84.

With the fire burning off the brush and grasses near the interstate, the high winds picked up the topsoil and obsured the vision of drivers, said Elmore County Deputy Chris Banks.

The first calls began arriving a little after 6 p.m. of multiple collisions.

"When I got there, we had three vehicles involved in serious crashes, and another eight or nine with some kind of damage, although it's hard to get an exact number because some people went ahead and drove on into Boise before reporting any damage," Banks said.

But other cars had had to make quick evasive manuevers to avoid the actual accidents, and Banks said he guessed "we had about 15-25 vehicles scattered" between the roadway's eastbound lanes and the median. "There was a whole bunch of vehicles all over the place," he said.

Visibility at the time of the incident was reduced to 10-15 feet for about a three-mile stretch of interstate, centered roughly on the milepoist 85 marker, where most of the collisions occurred.

"Mostly, it was caused by people driving too fast for conditions," the deputy said. "A lot of people got rear-ended.

"If you go 75 mph when you can only see 15 feet in front of your face, something's going to happen."

Injuries were surprising light. Only two people were transported by ambulance and only one of those had any serious injuries.

The accidents drew a horde of emergency personnel, including at least five sheriff's deputies, an Idaho State Police officer, three ambulance teams and a half dozen rescue units from the fire department and the county extrication team.

The interstate was closed for a little over an hour while the vehicles where cleared from the scene, reopening again shortly before 7:30 p.m.