Tartar Fire team braces for weekend winds

The Great Basin Incident Management Team 3 formally assumed command of the Tartar Fire at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning and briefed a smoke‑choked community that evening at the Vendome Events Center in Weiser. The lightning‑sparked blaze, burning since July 24 in the steep breaks above the Snake River, has contributed to days of heavy haze across the region. Air‑quality readings were sitting at an unhealthy 171 early Wednesday morning.

The Tartar Fire is one of several burning across the broader area, including the active Fox Fire just across the river in Oregon that forced a full evacuation of Huntington, has grown to over 61,000 acres and is reportedly at 0 containment. The Big Grass Fire in Owyhee County had reached over 292,000 acres by Wednesday morning, with evacuations of Pleasant Valley, South Mountain, Pleasant Valley Road to the City of Triangle, City of Triangle to the Triangle Reservoir, Flint Creek Road, Juniper Mountain Road, and the west portion of Mud Flat Road. Silver City is posted at a level 2  Set evacuation warning. All together, the fires have forced road closures, public‑land restrictions, and evacuations in multiple counties.

Fire behavior analyst Mike Pagoda opened Tuesday evening’s briefing with a detailed explanation of the stubborn smoke layer hanging over much of Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. A high‑pressure system over the Four Corners continues to push hot, dry, stable air northward, suppressing humidity and preventing overnight moisture recovery.

“We’re getting really poor overnight recovery,” Pagoda said, adding that humidity has been topping out at only about 40%. Combined with historically low winter snowpack, fuels across the fire area are critically dry.

“We have a very, very dry environment, very, very dry, large, heavy fuels,” he said.

Pagoda described how the fire initially raced uphill through light grasses along the Snake River, then began throwing spot fires into heavier brush and timber as it breached the  Payette National Forest boundary line. The eastern edge remains especially challenging, with scattered pockets of heavy fuels and small spot fires, “maybe the size of a chair, maybe the size of your car,”  complicating containment.

Operations Section Chief Matt Call praised local firefighters for their aggressive initial attack, saying they “put half this fire out before we even got here.” Much of the Tartar perimeter now has a solid containment line, and some sections have been marked black on the map, indicating high confidence the fire will not escape. Crews continue to work the more difficult terrain with dozers, hose lays, indirect line, and helicopter water drops. Call estimated that meaningful containment could be achieved within a week, though a forecasted wind event this weekend could test progress.

Agency representatives emphasized unified priorities: public safety, firefighter safety, and protection of homes, timber, and rangeland. Washington County officials outlined evacuation procedures, including IPAWS alerts and door‑to‑door notifications.

Incident Commander Todd Murray noted that national firefighting resources are stretched thin under Preparedness Level 5, meaning teams and aircraft are in short supply nationwide. Great Basin Team 3 will remain on the incident “until we collectively feel we’re in a good spot,” Murray said.