*Perilous Times and Global Warming
Wild Winds Fan Raging Wildfire Near Idaho Ski Lodge*
Wednesday August 29, 2007 3:01 AM
By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press Writer
KETCHUM, Idaho (AP) - Gusty winds pushed a wildfire closer to Sun Valley
Resort's ski area on Tuesday, while hundreds more homes were ordered
evacuated in the valley below.
The fire has burned more than 64 square miles of spruce, fir and pine
trees, keeping crews busy near a summit lodge adorned with fading
pictures of Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper and Tyrone Power, past
visitors to the ski area founded in 1936.
Amid the smoke, managers opted to run ski lifts - not for people, but to
keep errant flames from cooking cables that ferry more than 200,000
visitors up the slopes each winter.
As the fire burned up the west side of 9,150-foot Bald Mountain, Blaine
County officials expanded a mandatory evacuation order to the northern
part of Ketchum, on the other side of the mountain. Residents in about
2,000 homes now have been asked to leave since lightning started the
blaze Aug. 17. No structures have burned.
``This latest evacuation order was due to the fire conditions, the
burnout operations and the increased possibility for fire spotting,''
said Bob Beanblossum, a fire information officer. ``The fire activity is
still currently outside the ski area boundaries.''
Sixty Idaho Army and Air National Guard soldiers were assisting
residents, going door to door to make sure they followed the mandatory
order, said Bettyann Mummert, a local Red Cross official.
They were being taken to the Blaine County Community Campus in Hailey,
12 miles south of Ketchum.
The Sun Valley Resort, a mile east of Ketchum, was not part of the
evacuation.
Jack Sibbach, a spokesman for the Sun Valley Co., which runs the
510-room resort, said accommodations were roughly 90 percent full,
though guests had begun some cancellations, including a 36-person group
that opted to leave the valley.
``We understand safety has to come first,'' Sibbach said.
A wall of smoke greets motorists along state Highway 75 into the Wood
River Valley, where the ski area is. Many nearby mountains are obscured.
More than 1,650 fire personnel from across the nation are fighting the
blaze, considered the region's top priority, according to the National
Interagency Fire Center in Boise. That's in part because more than half
of Blaine County's $12 billion in net taxable value is in homes in Sun
Valley and Ketchum, both towns potentially in the fire's path.
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