Governor wrong about defensible areas

Dear editor:

This letter is in response to Gov. Otter's remarks to the Idaho Statesman and NIFC (the National Interagency Fire Center) on Friday Aug. 16, in which he said Fall Creek was an indefensible area for fire.

I was at all three meetings at the Elks lodge in Mountain Home on the Elk Complex Fire, and all three times I was told by fire officials that the Elk fire was a much different fire than the Trinity Ridge Fire of last year. They said it was unpredictable and erratic. It moved very fast, and that normal firefighting measures were not working with this fire.

Last year, when the Trinity Ridge Fire was five miles from our cabin, I was there when the fire evaluators came by. We walked over our property and we were given an A+ rating. They said we would put our truck here; it won't be hard to defend this cabin. I don't think it could get better than that.

Every mountain town in Idaho has cabins built in canyons. And under just the right conditions, any one of them could find themselves in the same firestorm that we were in.

Does that mean that they should not be allowed to rebuild or have fire insurance as our governor indicated? And what else will he decide is indefensible? Are our desserts next on the list? Remember all the homes lost in Boise a few years ago, and they had fire protection. We didn't.

We did lose our cabin this year, but if my cabin was defensible last year it was also defensible this year. Just not under the circumstances that happened with this fire. I was told the winds were 60 miles an hour when the fire moved up Fall Creek, and that temperatures of 1,000 degrees were registered there.

And yes, I do have insurance and I pay my premiums that are higher than our home in town. We all know Otter's cabin in Pine has been defended two years in a row. It is also in a canyon. Does that make it indefensible?

I did also have one bad neighbor. The 80 acres to my southeast was never cleaned up, logged or even thinned in the 20 years I have been there. And guess what -- it is owned by the state of Idaho. I plan to clean up my 31/2 acres and replant grass and trees in hopes of a full recovery eventually for the animals and future generations. I doubt the state will take the same active roll.

-- Ellen DuMars