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Construction starts on fire break around Mountain Home
With this year's fire season officially starting earlier this month, work continued this week to give the city better protection from the threat of range fires.
A fire break on the west side of Mountain Home is the first in what city officials hope will become a large-scale effort to create a permanent, protective fire barrier around the community.
The $20,000 project was funded through a grant awarded by the Southwest Idaho Resource Conservation and Development council, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management. Measuring 34 feet across, the nearly three-mile fire break starts near the intersection of Airbase and Bypass roads and continues around the west side of town to the city landfill.
City officials credited the efforts of Susie Colthorp from the public works department, who wrote and submitted the grant application that funded this project.
This sustainable fire break "will serve as a strategic holding barrier in the event of a wildfire," said Mountain Home Fire Chief Alan Bermensolo in a letter to property owners along this new fire line.
City firefighters specifically selected this side of Mountain Home for this initial fire break due to the number of range fires that have swept through this area in recent years. These blazes caused "significant property damage" in this part of town, Bermensolo said.
Sustainable fire breaks like this are needed around Mountain Home, the fire chief added.
Over the last 20 years, the city and communities throughout the Snake River Plain have dealt with an increasing amount of invasive grasses encroaching on their areas. Among them are medusahead and cheatgrass, both of which have increased the risk of range fires across the region, according to findings published in the county's community wildlife protection plan last year.
"These species create a more continuous vegetative fuel bed, which tends to result in higher rates of fire spread than the native vegetation could sustain," the report said.
Meanwhile, those types of plants tend to grow back following a fire only to burn again when the next range fire breaks out, Bermensolo said.
Work on the fire break is expected to wrap up by the end of the week. In the fall, workers will return to the area to plant fire resistant grass known as Forage Kochia. In addition to its fire-resistant properties, the grass is something that cattle and other wildlife enjoy eating. This will keep the vegetation properly maintained and provide an extra level of fire protection, according to Bermensolo.
The Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Land Management, is putting money into developing permanent solutions like sustainable fire breaks to keep range fires from threatening communities across the United States, the fire chief added.
As additional grant money becomes available through the BLM, the city hopes to secure additional grants to build other fire breaks around the city. High on this list is the northeast side of Mountain Home where a fast-moving range fire last July came within just a few hundred yards of the Hampton Inn north of town, which was ground zero for this three-pronged blaze that scorched more than 29,000 acres of land.
With city firefighters bracing for what could be another busy fire season, they will launch another fire prevention effort this month. They plan to contact home owners in the rural areas around Mountain Home to spread the word on building defensible spaces around their property. Local Boys Scouts are expected to join forces with these firefighters as part of this information-sharing effort.
The need for this type of defensible space became apparent following the Contrail Fire last June 18, according to firefighter Brian Reed. Fueled by high winds, the blaze destroyed at least six homes with 11 other structures sustaining damage before fire crews could contain the blaze.
In one instance, the flames stopped at the basement window of one home, Reed said.
"If they had defensible space by their home, it could've stopped the flames from getting that close," he added.
Ironically, people affected by that fire were cutting down weeds and tall grass around their homes after the fire had already swept through the area. By then, it was too late, Bermensolo said.
In addition to protecting people's property, having established fire breaks in place gives the fire department the ability to free up its resources in less-defended areas.
"Our goal is to prevent the loss of life and property," Bermensolo said. "However, the fire department can't be everywhere at once."