How Cuprum was Saved from the Limepoint Fire
Council District Ranger Jeff Jones said that pre-treatment of the Payette National Forest in the Cuprum area went a long way towards saving the town of Cuprum from the Limepoint Fire, which started on July 24th.
According to Payette Forest Public Affairs Officer Brian Harris, who has worked for the forest service for over 30 years, the pre-treatment started in 2010 and was finished in 2017.
He said the project involved timber sales, non-commercial thinning of small trees, and a series of controlled burns. This project allowed a dozer to get into the area and create a fire break that protected the town of Cuprum. The latest work was completed in 2018, but more work is planned as with the prescribed fire, maintenance burns are needed on a regular basis. Additional commercial logging is planned for the area as well.
Harris said that on day two of the Limepoint Fire, as it moved up Indian Creek, firefighters were able to turn the fire to the north. He said that on the third day, they were able to conduct a burnout operation or backburn, to keep the houses on the Council-Cuprum Road safe. The burnout was conducted during the nighttime and early morning hours on the third day of the fire.
According to Cuprum resident Tami Casey, who together with her husband Dave, have owned property in Cuprum for twenty years before moving there with their three Corgi’s five years ago, there are about 8 households in the unincorporated town and a number of property owners in the areas surrounding the town.
“We took the corgis to the firefighters to give them some dog therapy during their breaks,” she said.
She said that all of the Cuprum households had to evacuate for two weeks, and that she was surprised the Red Cross didn’t offer assistance, but glad that a woman who works for the county posted the need for places for evacuees to stay.
Casey was fortunate to have relatives to stay with in Council. She said that for many of the people who live in the area, their houses there are second homes, and these people left when the fire started.
Casey said the pretreatment that the Payette National Forest had done (commercial logging, non-commercial thinning, and prescribed fire and the logging done by the township) likely helped save their town.
President of the Cuprum Benevolent Preservation Society, Clinton Hedges, whose family has owned the property he lives on since 1972, said that their society had done some helicopter logging in 2009 on the forty acres of land the society owns.
According to Hedges approximately 5 households evacuated the area.
“The people who live out here don’t have campers because they live in the forest. The forest service did a great job. They saved our little town from what could have been a disaster. They communicated with us and kept us well informed,” Hedges said.
