In this year's wildfire season, about 1.75 million acres burned in Idaho, while about 9.1 million acres burned nationwide. "That puts us close to 20 percent of the acres nationally that burned, occurred in this state," Idaho state Lands Director Tom Schultz told the Land Board this morning. However, on the 6 million acres of state lands and those for which the Lands Department provides fire protection, only 4,674 acres burned this year. That's only half of the historic average of just over 9,000 acres. The state spent $22.7 million on firefighting and was reimbursed $8 million, for a net firefighting expenditure of $14.5 million.

"We took significant assignments out of state," Schultz reported. "We still do have some staff helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on some of those issues." He said, "It was a substantial fire season, very long, it went into October, and we had a lot of folks that gave a lot. We did have the one fatality, Anne Veseth, on the Steep Corner fire."

Gov. Butch Otter, who chairs the Land Board, said, "I notice that the number of fires, 182, 101 of them were human-caused. Is there recovery there above and beyond the $8 million?" Schultz said the state hasn't projected amounts for that, but said, "We do pursue those with our counsel. ... So we are involved in some of those investigations."

The Idaho Statesman reported today that on the Boise National Forest this year, half the fires were human-caused, which is way up from historical levels; that included the destructive Trinity Ridge fire.