Saturday afternoon a hillside up Ohio Gulch caught, and by dark a few hundred people between Hailey and Ketchum had a deputy at the door telling them to go. It burned 2,035 acres. Nothing was lost but sagebrush, which is the only good sentence in this paragraph.
Also this week: a 10,000-head feedlot gets its second hearing tonight, Bellevue lands $3 million for a street it can't build until 2032, the Music Festival puts a piano in a truck and drives it down valley, and the Big Wood is down to 238. Here's the week.
Top of Mind
The valley has burned 3,100 acres this month. Nothing is restricted yet.
The Ohio Fire started Saturday at 1:41 p.m., about a mile and a bit up Ohio Gulch Road from Highway 75, on the road you take to the transfer station. Six people were out there shooting. It's a spot people shoot at, and it's caught before. By Sunday it was 2,000 acres at 10% contained, with Heatherlands, Ohio Gulch, Indian Creek and the Valley Club under a level 3 GO and Triumph, Hiawatha and Red Devil told to be ready.
It stopped at 2,035 acres. No structures, no injuries. That took 109 firefighters, the Logan and Snake River hotshots, 13 engines, two dozers, an excavator and retardant from a very large air tanker. People got home Monday at 9 p.m. It hit 100% Tuesday evening. A 23-year-old from Los Angeles is charged with a misdemeanor, firing timber on prairie lands. The people who started it called 911 on themselves and turned themselves in, which is worth saying out loud.
Ten days before that, a firework put 1,065 acres up Martin Canyon east of Bellevue. So: two fires, two afternoons, 3,100 acres, both of them a person. And Blaine County still has no fire restrictions. The Sawtooth's Minidoka district, down by Burley, has been under Stage 1 since July 1. We haven't. Last week we wrote that whatever the threshold is, we're probably past it. Then Ohio Gulch went up and a few hundred people spent the weekend somewhere else, and the forecast for the next four days is 88, 91, 91 and 90 with rain odds in the single digits. Put the county under Stage 1.
Sources: Idaho Mountain Express and Eye on Sun Valley
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Town Hall
CountyTen thousand cattle want into the south end of Blaine County, and the second hearing is tonight. Twin Stock LLC has applied to put a feeding operation on 313 acres at 23 Yale Road, down by the Minidoka County line: finishing beef cattle, raising dairy heifers, conditioning cull cattle, year round, manure hauled off site with no lagoons. It would be the county's first CAFO, and the ag-productive zoning doesn't allow one outright, so it needs a conditional-use permit. County P&Z took it up Wednesday at the Old Courthouse in Hailey and hears it again tonight at 5 at the Minidoka City Office. The number to sit with is 124,900 gallons of water a day, about 45 million a year, in the same July that Ketchum assigned its residents watering days and Magic finished at 7.4%. Staff filed it high risk on the aquifer. [IME]
KetchumThe local-option tax increase gets its first of three readings tonight, 5:30 at City Hall. Retail would go to 8.5% and lodging to 13%, about $2.19 million a year earmarked for streets, with the city's own study putting roughly 82% of it on visitors. Three readings, then it can go on the November ballot. Tripp Hutchinson was the no vote on proceeding. [City of Ketchum]
BellevueBellevue got $3 million to rebuild Pine Street and can't touch it until 2031. The money is federal, through the state's Local Highway Technical Assistance Council, and it covers a full rebuild from Main past City Hall out to Muldoon Canyon, with the city on the hook for 7.6%. Design dollars land in 2031 and construction starts around 2032. Street Superintendent Casey McGehee's assessment of the current condition: "Pine Street is dead." Six more years of that. [IME]
BellevueThe Marshal's Office is dropping its two Flock Safety license-plate cameras to save $6,000 a year. They keep reading until the term runs out in September 2027. Marshal Kirtus Gaston says they helped find suspects and people in crisis, and also that "it's a useful tool, but there are other things to spend money on." The savings go to dictation software and interpretation software. Worth knowing before you read this as the valley backing off surveillance: there are still at least 22 Flock cameras running in Blaine County. [IME]
CountyA bat caught in Blaine County last week tested positive for rabies, the first confirmed bat case in south-central Idaho. Nobody's said whether it bit anything. The health district's advice is the boring kind that works: vaccinate the dog, the cat and the horse, plug any hole bigger than a quarter, and don't handle a bat that's acting friendly. Epidemiology manager Jacob Ward's point is the one to remember, that bat bites are easy to miss, so if you wake up with one in the room, call 208-737-5912. Treatment after exposure works. [IME]
Out & About
This weekend
Thu Jul 23 to Sun Jul 26 The Concert Truck. The Sun Valley Music Festival put a baby grand in a 16-foot truck that folds open into a stage, and it's spending four days down valley instead of at the Pavilion. Pianist Susan Zhang and the Festival String Quartet, 45 minutes, free. Today: the Hunger Coalition in Bellevue at 12:30, Hailey Rocks at 6. Friday: Senior Connection at noon, Bellevue Library at 6. Saturday: Hailey Library at 4, St. Charles at 8. Sunday: St. Charles at 9:30 a.m. [info]
Tonight, Thu Jul 23 Hailey Rocks: Kota Dosa at Hop Porter Park, 6:30 to 9, free, all ages, with the Concert Truck opening at 6. Afterparty at the Liberty. [info]
Fri Jul 24 Sun Valley Tour de Force: about 150 supercars parked on downtown Ketchum streets, 5 to 8 p.m., free to walk through, with commentary and food. [info]
Sat Jul 25 The Sawtooth Botanical Garden's 31st garden tour, six houses in the Golden Eagle neighborhood, 10 to 2. $45, or $40 if you're a member, and it's what funds the garden. [tickets]
Sat Jul 25 Sun Valley on Ice: Ilia Malinin, the reigning Olympic champion, on the outdoor rink. Doors 7:30 for the grandstand, skating at 8:30, $85 to $325. [tickets]
Sun Jul 26 The BCRD turns 50 and throws a party at Galena Lodge, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free, including the drinks and the fries. [info]
Sun Jul 26 Last Jazz in the Park of the season, Rotary Park on Warm Springs Rd, 6 to 8, free. Low chairs only. [Visit SV]
Every week
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 Ketch'em Alive, Forest Service Park, Ketchum. Free, through Aug 11. [Visit SV]
Wednesdays, 5 to 8 River Run Summer Series at the base: music, food trucks, an outdoor bar, and the gondola runs late until 7. Through Aug 26. [Visit SV]
Sat 10 to 2, Wed noon to 4 Wood River Farmers Market. Hailey Saturdays at Roberta McKercher Park, Ketchum Wednesdays at Forest Service Park. [info]
Thu, Fri, Sat, 5:30 to 7:30 Live Music in the Pasture, Hotel Ketchum's backyard. [info]
Wednesdays, 6 to 9:30 Wicked Wednesday at the Wicked Spud in Hailey. Free music, a different local nonprofit every week, 23 years running. [Visit SV]
Coming up
Mon Jul 27 The Sun Valley Music Festival opens its 42nd season, Orion Weiss at the Pavilion, 6:30. Free, as it always has been. Free public seats open an hour before, and any reserved seat nobody claims gets released at 6:15. Runs through Aug 20. [info]
Over Galena
Tonight, Thu Jul 23 Jampoke at the street dance on Ace of Diamonds, 6:30 to 10, free. Same band plays the Kasino Club on Saturday at 8, also free, if tonight doesn't work. [info]
Fri Jul 24, morning If you're driving Galena on Friday morning, so are about 150 supercars. The Tour de Force runs its field from Warm Springs up 75 over the pass to Stanley before the Ketchum show that evening. Nothing to do about it, but you'll want to know before you're behind it. [info]
Sat Jul 25 Stanley History Day at the museum on Museum Drive, noon. In a town of 116 the history is short and the people who lived it are still around. [info]
Sat Aug 1 The Sagebrush Soirée at Redfish Lake Lodge, 5:30 to 8:30. Ticketed, 20 years running, and it's what pays for a lot of the trail work you use up there. Buy ahead; it's a lodge, not a stadium. [tickets]
Standing up there: Music on the Lawn at Redfish, Wednesday and Friday 6 to 8 and Sunday 5 to 7, free (Coming Home Friday, the Scott Knickerbocker Band Sunday). Trivia Wednesdays at the Kasino, 7:30.
The Dirt
River and fish. The Big Wood is 238 cfs at Hailey, 65% of normal. Here's the strange part: it was 65% last week too, at 318. The river gave up 80 cfs in seven days and didn't lose a single point, because the July median drops just as fast as the river does. Silver Creek sits at 107 cfs, 101% of its own normal, spring-fed and unbothered. Fish early and mean it this week. Silver Creek's gauge hit 73.2 degrees Tuesday afternoon and was back to 66 by dawn. Mornings are PMDs, caddis and golden stones on the Big Wood, Tricos on the Creek until about 10:30, though Silver Creek Outfitters says the preserve hatch has been thin. Hoppers are starting to draw. [Silver Creek Outfitters]
Fire. Still no restrictions anywhere in Blaine County as of Wednesday. Air cleared up once Ohio Gulch went out. The forecast is the whole problem: 88 today, then 91, 91 and 90 through Sunday, with rain chances in the single digits every one of those days. [Sawtooth National Forest]
Trails and mountain. Ohio Gulch and Indian Creek are shut to bikes, hikers and off-road vehicles while crews mop up, and Indian Creek Road and Heatherlands are residents only. There's a compost pile at Winn's still holding heat, which is why the official control date isn't until July 29. Everything else in the valley is open. On Baldy, the summit reopened after the helicopter work, lifts run Wednesday through Sunday 9 to 4, and Lookout Lodge is closed all season for the lift rebuild, so plan your restroom stop around the Roundhouse.
Over Galena. The Salmon below the Yankee Fork is 826 cfs, about 95% of normal, dropping fast enough that Silver Creek Outfitters is calling the upper river walk-and-wade from above Stanley down to Clayton. Valley Creek at Stanley reads about 165 after Friday's storms briefly doubled it. Spruce moths are close. The pass is clear of construction, supercars aside.
Open House
The Guyer Hot Springs subdivision still doesn't have an answer. Ketchum's P&Z heard it July 16 and continued the hearing to Aug 6 at 4:30 at City Hall, which is the one to show up to if you have a view. On the table off Warm Springs Road: five single-family lots in phase one, 12 to 15 townhomes in phase two, 17 to 20 units in all plus four possible workforce units, with the Ciminos and Brian Barsotti asking to rezone both parcels to T-3000. Commissioners want more density in phase one, since phase-one lot sales are what fund phase two, and they asked for public fishing access to Warm Springs Creek through the property. Commissioner Heidi Schernthanner called it "a very thoughtful project," which is not a sentence that gets said often at a rezone hearing. [IME]
Table Talk
Nothing opened and nothing died this week that we can confirm, so here's the one worth knowing. The three-story building going up at 200 N. Main was supposed to have a Mediterranean restaurant on the ground floor. It's going to be a hat store. Kemo Sabe, the Aspen western outfitter, takes the first floor next to the Casino, with two deed-restricted units, four market-rate ones and a penthouse stacked above it. Developer Kenny Dudunakis switched because cooking smells would have drifted up into the apartments, which is a fair call and a real constraint. It's also the trade Main Street keeps making: fewer kitchens, more retail, and the housing upstairs only pencils because of what's downstairs. Opening's expected April 2027. [IME]
If you know about a new spot or a shuttered one, hit reply. Tips beat press releases every time.
The Party Line
The valley's anonymous board. One tap, no name, and the link's at the bottom.
- To the guys shooting up Ohio Gulch on Saturday: you called 911 on yourselves and you turned yourselves in. That counts for something. It doesn't count for 2,035 acres. But it counts for something.
- Ninety-one degrees in the forecast three days running, and my neighbor power-washed his driveway on an even day. I have written down his house number.
Odd or even, Wednesday belongs to no one. - Overheard at the Hailey market. "Ten thousand cows." "Where?" "Yale Road." "Where's that?" Exactly.
- Whoever at the Music Festival decided a piano belongs in a truck in Bellevue: that's the first time in nine years the festival has acted like it knew we were down here.
- Evacuated Saturday, sat in a parking lot in Hailey until Monday night, came home to a house that's still standing because a hotshot crew from Logan slept in my sagebrush. If you see them, buy the beer.
- A hundred and fifty supercars are going over Galena on Friday morning and I will be behind every one of them in a Subaru with a kayak on the roof.
The pass owes you nothing either.
Got one? Submit anonymously → (one tap, no name required)
One from last week. We said the Big Wood had hit summer baseflow and gone flat. It hadn't. It dropped another 75 cfs over the following week and is only now flattening. Reading two steady days as a floor was our call and it was wrong, which is worth saying since we ask you to plan around these numbers.
If you do one thing this weekend, go stand near the truck with the piano in it. Bellevue at 12:30 today, the Hailey library Saturday at four. Free, 45 minutes, and it's the Music Festival playing for the half of the valley that usually has to drive up to hear it.
And don't light anything.
See you next Thursday.
The Bigwood Brief
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