Idaho, Montana account for nearly two-thirds of major wildfires. Disaster News Network.
I do think things are calming down, however, and I am taking off for a while to visit central Idaho.
Returned on September 16. The wildfires did cool a bit, although there were a couple big runs in Montana. McCall, Cascade, and Riggins, Idaho were completely free of smoke while I was there, but the plumes blew, and continued to blow, over very sparsely inhabited central Idaho into Montana, covering almost all of the west half of the “Big Sky State” with smoke (to which was added the many Montana fires). The motel keeper in Hamilton, Montana (Bitterroot Valley) told they had hardly had a smokeless day since July 9 when the first big forest fires started in Idaho.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
