StroebelвЂ™s 81-acre property has been owned by her family since 1963, she said. The resulting noise caught the attention of Helen Stroebel, who lives around a half-mile from MillerвЂ™s property. вЂњWe were just making sure there were less trees in one particular spot.вЂќ вЂњIt was more of a traditional thinning where the things that we were taking out were about the same as the things that we were leaving,вЂќ she said. With MillerвЂ™s property, Heward said many of the trees that the students thinned were already dead. вЂњItвЂ™s come too close to us too many times.вЂќ вЂњWe donвЂ™t feel cursed, but we do not like fire,вЂќ Miller said. They had to evacuate, however, when the Dirtyface fire broke out that August. In 2005, a house Miller had under construction caught fire, forcing him and his family to live in a cabin near Dirtyface Peak for some time. Heward said Miller was in need of tree thinning on his West Twin Road property near IdlerвЂ™s Rest. The recent project got off the ground after Heward was approached by Dale Miller, a friend of hers from church. She started the clubвЂ™s вЂњFire Fighter for HireвЂќ program, which sees students perform prescribed burns and other maintenance tasks to earn money for trips to work with the clubвЂ™s East Coast partners. UIвЂ™s SAFE Club has been active for around 20 years, said Heward, the clubвЂ™s adviser. вЂњAnd it was not torching those trees, which was one of our most likely candidates for getting the spotting that we were seeing in those spot fires,вЂќ he said. Whereas the fire crept as high as 20 to 50 feet, with some torching through untreated trees, McManus said flames in the fuel treated area extended only 2 to 6 feet, and spread less quickly.

The efforts were apparent to firefighters a few weeks ago. вЂњPeople donвЂ™t tend to have action around their own property unless they see it might do something.вЂќ вЂњItвЂ™s an enormous tragedy, but I recognize that the best thing we could possibly do to educate people is to give them examples,вЂќ said Heather Heward, a senior instructor in UIвЂ™s forestry program and chair of the Idaho Prescribed Fire Council. That expanded to a neighboring property about a half mile away, where students worked from March 2020 to May 2021 to burn 10 piles from a 2.5-acre area. ДЇrom that September to this past May, more than 35 students spent 350 hours to burn 30 piles of tree refuse drawn from a 1-acre area. In September 2018, students with the University of IdahoвЂ™s Student Association for Fire Ecology (SAFE) Club and the Prescribed Burning Lab class embarked on work in that area around IdlerвЂ™s Rest Road to reduce wildfire fuel. McManus, assistant fire warden with the Ponderosa Forest Protective District, said low humidity and high winds, especially prevalent on that side of Moscow Mountain, lent themselves to the blazeвЂ™s further development, with spot fires starting a quarter- to a half-mile ahead of the fire itself.ДЄnd while the fire broke out in a location rife with wildfire fuel, firefighters got an assist three years in the making that at least slowed down the fire in some smaller areas вЂ“ and may have helped save a home.

That same day, a red flag warning was issued for most of Eastern Washington, just over the state line. An investigation determined the fire started due to an electrical issue in a barn. He wasnвЂ™t wrong.ДЄ barn fire reported early that Monday afternoon on IdlerвЂ™s Rest Road north of Moscow, Idaho, eventually grew into a 116-acre wildfire that took firefighters around a week to put out.

30 had all of the ingredients of a bad fire day.

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