For three straight issues we told you Blaine County had no fire restrictions of its own. As of last Friday that is no longer true. Stage 1 took effect on the Ketchum and Fairfield ranger districts, on the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and across most of the county at the same time. The north zone moved from Very High to Extreme.

Also this week: Bellevue floated more than doubling its city levy and heard about it, 126 artists take Atkinson Park starting tomorrow, Baldy shuts down completely Saturday for a helicopter, and the Big Wood is at 138. Here's the week.

Top of Mind

Stage 1 is on, and every crew in the country is already spoken for.

It took effect Friday, Aug. 7 on the Ketchum Ranger District, the Fairfield Ranger District and the SNRA, under Forest Order #0414-00-032. The same day, the interagency areas covering most of Blaine County went to Stage 1 as well, a joint call by the Forest Service, the BLM, the Idaho Department of Lands and the Bureau of Reclamation. Custer County north and east of the SNRA went with them, so it follows you over Galena too.

What it means on the ground: campfires only at designated recreation sites, in the agency-installed metal or concrete rings, and nowhere else. No smoking outside a vehicle, a building, or a cleared spot. Charcoal and propane on your own property are still fine. Violations are a federal misdemeanor.

So we're in the thick of it now. Fire danger reads Extreme in the north zone and Very High in the south. The national preparedness level has been pinned at 5 since July 18, which is the top of the scale and means the crews, engines and tankers are already committed somewhere. The governor and the chief of the Forest Service both said out loud this week that Idaho is stretched thin. Nobody is in reserve waiting on ours. The valley has come through this summer on two house fires and a 41-acre irrigation pump, which is close to a miracle in a year this dry. Let's finish it that way.

Sources: Idaho Mountain Express on the restrictions and on stretched resources, plus the Sawtooth National Forest alerts page

Town Hall

BellevueThe city is weighing a permanent levy increase from $162.70 to $400 per $100,000 of value. On the median Bellevue home at $470,000, that moves the city portion of the bill from about $765 a year to about $1,880. It needs 60% at the ballot box, and the room did not care for it. Even at $400, the city's own memo has street maintenance underwater by 2034. That's the number worth arguing about. [IME]

CountyThe district expects 2,828 students when school opens Tuesday, Aug. 25, down 108 from last September, with all eight schools shrinking. That's roughly $500,000 less from the state, and a $587,000 hole that reaches $1.2 million if the disputed contract terms land. Superintendent Jim Foudy traces it to births, not families leaving: 205 in 2021, 183 in 2024. Board chair Lara Stone: "That sucks the air out of the room." [IME]

KetchumSouthbound Highway 75 through town has been closed since Wednesday and stays closed through Tuesday, Sept. 1, between River Street and Gem Street. Southbound traffic goes Second Avenue to Serenade Lane. It's utility trenching, Idaho Power and Intermountain Gas, and it shuts out bikes and people on foot too, not just cars. [City of Ketchum]

Sun ValleyThe council voted 3-1 to leave northern Elkhorn Road at 30 mph rather than drop it back to 25. The traffic study that prompted the fight found speeding at both limits, including someone doing 107 southbound near Highlands Drive in late July. A speed limit is not what stops that driver, and the council said so out loud, which is more honest than the alternative. [IME]

HaileyFirst reading on a $29.1 million budget, which is $7.1 million less than last year, almost all of it capital projects coming off the books. Mayor Martha Burke flagged the reason: building permits down, investment returns down, and Idaho's shared sales tax revenue off 7.9%. Second reading is Monday, Aug. 24 at 5:30 at City Hall. [IME]

CareyCarey School gets a school resource officer for the first time, for fiscal 2027 and 2028. It costs $130,000: the county puts in $32,000, the district $98,000, and the sheriff converts a jail deputy rather than adding a body. The officer also covers Bellevue Elementary and Hemingway. South county asked for this for years and it took a levy to get it. [IME]

Out & About

This week

Tonight, Thu Aug 13  Hailey Rocks: Pixie & the Partygrass Boys at Hop Porter Park, 6:30 to 9, free, all ages, afterparty at the Liberty. Second to last one of the season. [info]

Tomorrow through Sun Aug 16  Sun Valley Arts & Crafts Festival, 57th year, 126 artists from 27 states in Atkinson Park. Free. Friday and Saturday 10 to 5, Sunday 10 to 4. Walk from town; the park has no parking. [info]

Tomorrow, Fri Aug 14  Adam Williams plays Birdies Snack Shack at Bigwood, 5 to 8, out on the golf course at 115 Thunder Trail. Every Friday through September, and almost nobody outside the neighborhood knows it exists. [info]

Tomorrow, Fri Aug 14  Tan Dun's Water Concerto at the Pavilion, 6:30, free. Percussionists play amplified bowls of water. Strangest thing the Festival will do all summer, and worth showing up for. [info]

Sat Aug 15Baldy is closed. All of it. Gondola, every trail, the Roundhouse. A helicopter is flying towers for the new Lookout and Christmas lifts. The River Run ticket office and shop stay open. [IME]

Sat Aug 15  Electric vehicle car show at Roberta McKercher Park in Hailey, same park and day as the farmers market. The Chamber lists no start time, so plan around the market's 10 to 2. [info]

Every week

Saturdays, 9 to 10  Yoga at River Run. Free, all levels. Saturday's closure is the mountain, not the base, so this still runs. Get there by 8:45, bring a mat, leave the dog. [info]

Sundays, 10 to 10:45  Pop Up Pilates on the Young Summer Lawn behind the Brass Ranch. Free, no registration, mat class, raffle after. Three Sundays left this month. [info]

Wednesdays, 5 to 8  Summer Series at River Run, free, gondola until 7. Next up Aug 19, High Pine Whiskey Yell, with Idaho Basecamp and the YMCA. [info]

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]

Also standing, all free: live music at The Ram in the Sun Valley Inn, Wed to Sun 6 to 9. Live Music in the Pasture at Hotel Ketchum, Thu/Fri/Sat 5:30. Wicked Wednesday at the Wicked Spud, Hailey, 6 to 9:30.

Coming up

Sun Aug 16 to Thu Aug 20  The Music Festival's closing week, all free, all 6:30 at the Pavilion. Pops night Sunday, Gil Shaham playing Barber Monday and Beethoven Tuesday, and Mahler's First to finish it Thursday. [info]

Wed Aug 19  A Met curator at SVMoA: Jennifer Farrell on the Department of Drawings and Prints, 5:30, registration required. The Circa 1971 show gets its own evening tour Thursday, also 5:30. [info]

Thu Aug 20  Last Hailey Rocks of the season: Caitlin Krisko & the Broadcast at Hop Porter Park, 6:30 to 9, free, all ages. [info]

Thu Aug 20  Sigi & Sepp's Porch Series in Sun Valley Village, 11 a.m., free, this one with the Environmental Resource Center. Built for kids and it runs an hour. [info]

Over Galena

Tonight, Thu Aug 13  Street dance on Ace of Diamonds, 6:30 to 10, free, with Garrett T Capps, Wes Schlag and the Bad Quitters. Next Thursday it's the Sean Hatton Band, plus a mobile dinosaur exhibit at the library. [info]

Tomorrow and Sat Aug 15  Tom Conneely and the Birds of Paradise play the Kasino both nights at 8, free. Indie rock, two-night stand, and the Kasino is where Stanley actually shows up. [info]

Tomorrow, Fri Aug 14  Poverty Flats on the Redfish lawn, 6 to 8, free, Lakeside Grill serving through it. Sunday it's Dustin Morris, 5 to 7. [info]

Also standing: trivia at the Kasino Wednesdays at 7:30. Karaoke at Mountain Village Mondays at 9.

Mark it down

Sat Aug 22  Kameron Marlowe at the Pavilion, 8:15, doors at 7:15. Ticketed, and net proceeds go to cancer research at St. Luke's and the Masonic Cancer Center. [tickets]

The Dirt

River and fish. The Big Wood is 138 cfs at Hailey, 58% of normal and down 30 in a week. The percentage is what changed: it held at 63 for two weeks and has started falling, so the river is dropping faster than a dry August usually drops it. Silver Creek is 86 and 75% of normal, off from 85%, and cooled to 61 degrees. Tricos and caddis in the morning, hoppers and ants after. Low clear water, spooky fish, one cast. [Silver Creek Outfitters]

Fire and air. Stage 1 as of last Friday, north zone fire danger Extreme, south zone Very High. The Tartar Fire north of Weiser is 158,027 acres at 93% contained and going back to local crews, which is why Ketchum read Good on the monitor this morning. Clean air is not a green light: the restrictions are about fuel moisture, and nothing about this week made the grass wetter. Grandjean campground and trailhead stay closed. [Sawtooth National Forest]

Roads and the mountain. Southbound 75 is shut through Ketchum until Sept. 1, River to Gem, detour on Second and Serenade. Baldy is closed entirely Saturday for helicopter work. The lower Bald Mountain Trail is closed base to Traverse through September for the Warm Springs Connector, so the summit half is still open if you climb to it. Lifts run Wednesday to Sunday, 9 to 4. [Sun Valley Resort]

Over Galena. The Salmon below the Yankee Fork is 464, 83% of normal, still floatable through the canyon. Valley Creek is 91. Spruce moths, tricos and caddis in the morning up there and hoppers in the afternoon, but the mornings are in the 30s now, so the fishing has slid later in the day. Stage 1 covers Custer County north and east of the SNRA, so no fire outside a designated ring. [Silver Creek Outfitters]

Open House

Background, because this one has been grinding along since July. The last undeveloped ground inside Ketchum city limits sits at the west end of Warm Springs Road. David and Robert Cimino and Brian Barsotti want 15 to 20 homes on it, in two phases: five single-family houses first, then 10 to 15 townhomes with four of them workforce units. To get there they need the city to rezone the parcel, and the rezone is the actual fight. Last Thursday the Planning and Zoning Commission spent close to four hours on it and again withheld approval on all three pieces, the rezone, the floodplain permit and the layout, until the developers bring back a binding development agreement. It resumes Thursday, Sept. 17 at 4:30.

Two things did move. Phase one is now tied to the workforce housing, so the five houses can't get built without the four restricted units following. And the restriction is the open question: as written, a workforce buyer can sell at full market after ten years, and commissioners Brenda Moczygemba and Hannah Harris want it permanent. They're right. A deed restriction with an expiration date isn't affordable housing, it's a ten-year delay with a payout at the end. [IME]

Separately, P&Z takes up the proposed development code rewrite Thursday, Aug. 20 at 4:30 at City Hall: downtown standards, design review, parking, the Mountain Overlay, building heights. [City of Ketchum]

Table Talk

An opening, and it happened quietly enough that a lot of the valley hasn't caught up to it. Roadbars Cocktail Club has a walk-in room at 17 W Bullion Street in Hailey, open Wednesday through Saturday, 4 to 11. You probably know the name from the vintage trailer bar that turns up at weddings and parties around Sun Valley, or from their craft mixers. This is the brick-and-mortar version of that, and it's down-valley, which is where the valley has been shortest on somewhere to sit and get a properly made drink. [info]

Also worth booking: Fiamma's Sunday Supper Series brings in Viet Pham on Sunday, Aug. 23. He runs Pretty Bird in Salt Lake and has spent a decade on Food Network competition shows. Seats go through Tock and the earlier ones in this series have gone. Know a new spot or a shuttered one? Hit reply. Tips are how this section stays honest. [tickets]

The Party Line

If you do one thing this weekend, walk Atkinson Park. It's free, it's 126 booths, and it's the last big outdoor thing before school starts and the valley goes quiet for three weeks.

Don't plan on Baldy Saturday.

See you next Thursday.

The Bigwood Brief

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