Wildfires

This year was historic for wildfires. Smoke from western states was detected across the United States and as far as Europe. As climate change continues to worsen our fire seasons, it’s critical to understand how this smoke impacts our health and how to best protect ourselves from this smoke. 

Firefighters have long studied how fires behave to figure out where they’re going and how to keep people safe. But wildfires are becoming more unpredictable.

A bipartisan group of Western lawmakers have signed onto a new federal bill that aims to reduce the damages of wildfire.

The West is experiencing record-breaking fires this year, and that’s affecting recreationists, including hunters.

Large numbers of migratory birds have reportedly dropped dead in New Mexico and Colorado.

There’s still confusion over the deaths, like how many died and what exactly killed them. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service believes the bird deaths in Colorado and New Mexico were caused by an unusual cold front.

The Nampa Fire Department and the Boise Fire Department have deployed teams throughout the west this wildfire season. Nampa Fire, along with crews from Parma, Kuna and Sand Hollow, fought fires near San Francisco for 23 days. But their work didn’t end there.

Fires in Oregon, Washington and California have blanketed the northwest in smoke. We're also six months into the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Woodhead Fire is the largest of Idaho’s current wildfires. Fire managers told local community members Wednesday night that it’s grown to more than 84,000 acres and is 39% contained.

For folks in the fire science world, the smoke that has engulfed most of the western United States is not surprising. As climate change, years of poor forest management and home development practices come to a head, this could be the new normal in the West. But what no one could predict before 2020 was how a global pandemic would exacerbate the health effects of wildfire smoke.

Last week, Idaho had mostly clear skies and acceptable air quality. But over the weekend, smoke from major West coast fires started to slink in.

After starting the week with a promising downward trend in new COVID-19 cases, Idaho saw it's deadliest single day this week. Still, health districts are considering opening bars and schools while downtown Boise is losing a corporate tenant. At the same time, unprecedented wildfires spurred by climate change, poor fire policy and building practices are burning through communities in neighboring Oregon and Washington, providing a cautionary tale to Idaho as smoke moves back into the region.

For days now, wildfire smoke has degraded the air quality in much of the Mountain West, and that unhealthy air is forcing tough decisions for schools that are trying to reopen.

Many western states are experiencing above average wildfire seasons, with nearly 4 million acres burned so far.

From grabbing a drink to going to the theatre, COVID-19 means city activities are risky. Now, many people are going to the great outdoors for recreation, which could mean a potential increase in wildfire risk.

On today's Reporter Roundtable, we discuss the upcoming special session for lawmakers during a pandemic, what cancelling Boise State University's football season means for the school's bottom line, the inequities in school reopenings facing Latino students, and fighting wildfires during COVID-19.