Paddock fire

On the evening of Monday, Aug. 5th, a dry lightning storm passed through Southwest Idaho, sending hundreds of lightning bolts onto dry rangelands that had been cooked by 100-degree heat for nearly a month.

The lightning bolts ignited many wildfires. One of them ignited a major range fire near Paddock Reservoir, located about 20 air miles east of Midvale.

“We were on it Monday night,”

said David Judy, a local rancher and newly elected president of the Black Canyon Rangeland Fire Protection

Association (RFPA). “I was out there fighting the fire with a 4-wheeler and a 30-gallon water tank. We were out there for six hours trying to put it out, but it was really hot and the wind kept blowing at 20-30 mph at 2-3 a.m. in the morning.

“We had six different wind changes, and

it just turned into a monster.”

The Midvale Volunteer Fire Department was on scene as well as the Weiser River RFPA. The Bureau

of Land Management was aware of the fire, but it had multiple starts to manage all over Southwest Idaho. Fire weather officials counted 939 lightning strikes in that region. BLM resources were stretched thin by that situation, plus aerial firefighting resources were being used in the giant Durkee fire in E. Oregon.

It was as if an angry Zeus was unleashing a fury of fire at planet earth. The Paddock wildfire zone was in the cross-hairs of that fury.

“It burned the whole North Crane Creek Valley in four hours,” Judy said. “It was insane.”