Explanation
I've always enjoyed covering range fires, which are a fact of life in the western states during the summer. This one wasn't very big, but it was precariously close to several homes and a junkyard full of old cars.

10-year old suspected in hillside fire
By Arik Hesseldahl
Of The Journal

A Bannock County Sheriff's Detective is anticipating arson charges against a 10-year old boy suspected of starting a brush fire that threatened several homes in a hillside neighborhood east of Pocatello Monday.

Det. Toni Vollmer said the investigation into the cause of the fire is continuing, but that the boy, who is suspected to using a lighter to start the fire, has emerged as the lead suspect.

Charges had not been filed by 10:30 a.m. today.

Vollmer said she is also looking into the possibility that Monday's fire may be connected to a smaller brush fire in the same area reported on July 26.

Jerry Christian, 8432 Parks Road, was among the first to notice the fire. One minute, he said, he saw a person wearing blue shorts walking a black dog along the street in front of his house. The next thing he remembered seeing was a lighting-quick flame working its way up the dangerously dry hillside, first consuming roadside plants, then numerous juniper bushes and other hillside brush.

"If that person walking their dog didn't see how this fire started, then no one did," Christian said.

The fire blackened a narrow path on its way up the hill, directly between Christian's house and a neighboring home, then spread in the direction of homes on Buckskin Road and Pocatello Creek Road, fanned by gusting winds that reached nearly 40 miles per hour.

The area surrounding Christian's back yard became a battleground, pitting borrowed garden hoses and sprinklers against exploding juniper bushes, as he and friends and neighbors teamed up to try and protect the homes before fire crews arrived.

Joe Lehman was helping put up a garage wall, when someone came driving down the road saying a brush fire had started nearby.

Lehman and his crew grabbed shovels and garden hoses and ran to help fight it for the next two hours.

"It was incredible how people driving down the road got out and helped," Lehman said.

"It's not fun," he said about fighting a brush fire. "I would not want to be a firefighter. It's scary. You're seared. You can't breathe."

Firefighters with the Chubbuck Fire Dept. soon arrived on the scene, and were later assisted by crews from the Bureau of Land Management, the Pocatello Valley Fire Dept., the Pocatello Fire Dept., the Caribou National Forest and the Inkom Fire Dept. Each agency is a member of the Gateway Interagency Fire Front.

Fire engines were stationed near threatened homes. Though flames came close to some homes, none were damaged.

After burning over the crest of the hill, the fire turned toward the homes of Matt and Jeff Honeycutt and Ivan Skinner on Pocatello Creek Road.

The Honeycutts, who own an auto salvage business, have about 250 inoperable cars on their property. As the flames began to lick at the edges of his property, Matt Honeycutt used an old timber skidder to begin cutting a fire line into the earth between the cars and the flames.

"This is the most people we've had up here in a year," Honeycutt said.

He was later relieved by a BLM bulldozer crew who continued building the earthen fire line, as the air tanker arrived.

Three air tankers, one each from Boise, Salt Lake City and West Yellowstone, Mont., began dropping retardant at about 4:20 p.m. to help stifle the fire's advance, but heavy smoke reduced visibility, complicating their work. As a small guide plane flew high over the scene, another plane, called a lead ship, flew low over the fire several times, plotting each tanker's course. After six tanker drops, BLM firefighters set backfires, burning brush between the fire line and already-burned areas.

As the fire was contained by late afternoon, several fire crews were diverted to a second fire near Lava Hot Springs.