Smoke cloaks Coeur d’Alene sky
RAY ERKU | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 months, 2 weeks AGO
Jason Reddick tosses a baseball near City Beach in Coeur d'Alene amid smoke coming from a wildfire north of Bonners Ferry.
RAY ERKU/PRESS
Residents of the Coeur d’Alene area woke up Thursday morning to the distinct scent of burning timber. A thin cloak of smoke also temporarily enveloped the sky above the city’s main lake and its surrounding mountains.
According to Coeur d’Alene Fire Marshal Craig Etherton and the National Weather Service in Spokane, recent wildfires north in Boundary County had pushed smoke south toward Kootenai County.
The Turner Hill Fire north of Bonners Ferry is reported to have started shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday. By 6 p.m. Thursday, the fire was at 250 acres, prompting “Level 3” evacuation orders for residents near the fire’s vicinity.
Etherton also said that the Upper Smith Fire near the Canadian border, which as of 6 p.m. Thursday had reached nearly 600 acres, is contributing to the smoke seen and inhaled by Coeur d’Alene residents. According to watchduty.org, that fire is “burning on a north aspect in extremely steep and rugged terrain” and was first reported on July 8.
Meanwhile, two more wildfires started Thursday in Boundary County, according to Watch Duty. Relatively small in size, these include the Alpha Fire near the Montana border at 0.1 acres and the Dusty Fire just north of the border between Bonner and Boundary counties at 2 acres.
Currently, the air quality forecast for Coeur d’Alene has improved over the past day.
“It’s kind of lifting,” Etherton said. “But it’s still not great.”
According to the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, Coeur d’Alene’s air quality is deemed "acceptable" for this weekend. From a scale of 0-500, with 500 being the worst, the local air quality index is expected to range from 80 to 83.
“For some pollutants,” the Idaho DEQ states online, “there may be a moderate health concern for a very small number of people who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.”
ARTICLES BY RAY ERKU
Coeur d'Alene to enforce new alleyway parking rule
Coeur d'Alene to enforce new alleyway parking rule
City motorists will now be required to park farther away from alleyways. Prompted by garbage trucks having trouble safely entering and exiting alleyways, Coeur d’Alene officials on Tuesday unanimously passed a new rule that prohibits anyone from parking within 15 feet of an alleyway.
Color coded: Why the hands on The Coeur d’Alene Resort clock tower are white
Why the hands on The Coeur d’Alene Resort clock tower are white
Mary Merrill is one of the few who can say she literally changed time. It was the 1980s. Merrill, her last name at the time Doughty, was working for North Idaho College when she noticed something was off with what’s now a prominent feature of downtown Coeur d’Alene. Her bugaboo had to do with the color scheme of the new three-sided clock tower built at Coeur d’Alene Resort.
'Without our people': Hagadone execs thank, praise employees
Hagadone execs thank, praise employees
Executives at the Hagadone Corporation had a warm collective message on Friday afternoon: appreciation and thanks for their employees. “You can put all the fancy brick and mortar together, but it’s great people like you that take care of the customers,” said Brad Hagadone, president of the Hagadone Corporation. “That really brings the guests back.”