A 342 acre fire was detected July 14th 15 miles southeast of Burley. The fire burned timber, grass, and brush.
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Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS PIH wrote it up.
A 342 acre fire was detected July 14th 15 miles southeast of Burley. The fire burned timber, grass, and brush. Aerial resources utilized with 100 personnel on the fire.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Pocatello, ID wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jul 14, 8:29 AM MST, 2 hours 12 minutes earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Pocatello ID 929 AM MDT Wed Jul 14 2021 .UPDATE...Quick update this morning to add isolated thunderstorms for this afternoon and evening. Coverage looks very limited to a small portion of the central mountains northeast toward the Divide. A small portion of the activity could extend into the INL portion of the Arco Desert as well. Confidence is not particularly high, but there is just enough consistency with a few of the high-res solutions, especially in light of the activity yesterday, to garner concern. DMH && .PREV DISCUSSION... /issued 307 AM MDT Wed Jul 14 2021/ DISCUSSION... Hot and dry weather continues to be the big weather story across Eastern Idaho for the upcoming week. Today will be the "coolest" day for the next week and temps today will run around 3-5 degrees above climo. Winds today will be lighter as a weak ridge starts to build over the area. This will keep the area precip free today. As we move into Thursday, a weak shortwave looks to skirt past the region and this looks to be the impetus for some isolated thunderstorm chances across the higher terrain of the Central Mountains and eastern Highlands. For Friday, a low pressure system off of British Columbia looks to sweep into Washington and this will tighten the pressure gradient across the region helping to enhance winds just a touch across eastern Idaho but remaining below any wind advisory levels. As we move into the weekend, confidence is high in strong high pressure expanding over the area out of the Desert SW and bringing hot weather back to the area. Sunday and Monday will likely be the hottest days of the forecast period with Heat Advisories/Warnings likely being needed for portions of eastern Idaho. GFS remains the warmest and again shows the potential for all-time highs as MEX guidance shows 106 in Pocatello on Monday. The GFS has been quite aggressive with the heat the last few weeks and it has yet to verify but nearly all of its ensembles and most of the ECMWF ensembles show temps exceeding 100 at PIH during this time period. H5 heights overhead are nearing 600 DM so it certainly seems plausible. That being said, nudged temps up a few degrees from the NBM during the Sun/Mon period giving strong consensus amongst the guidance. The only fly in the ointment if you will could be any haze/smoke influence from regional fires. Too tough to pinpoint that this far out but if it transpires that could knock temps down a few degrees. No matter how you look at it though, we will be quite hot. Monsoonal moisture looks to push into the area starting late Monday and into Tuesday along the western periphery of the high. McKaughan AVIATION... VFR conditions expected through the forecast period outside of any reduced visibilities from smoke associated with regional wildfires. Could see some reduced VSBYs but this is not expressed in the forecast at this time given the low confidence. Winds will be lighter today generally around 10 knots or so during the afternoon hours becoming light and variable overnight. McKaughan FIRE WEATHER... A hot and dry wx pattern continues, with a ridge of high pressure to our south our main synoptic enforcer and W/SW flow over the ridge across the Great Basin/nrn Rockies. One saving grace will be sfc winds, which should generally hold shy of critical fire wx thresholds throughout the next 7-8 days with no local direct hits from significant shortwaves. We will be grazed by occasional features though...in particular, some combination of ascent from weak troughing to our NW and perhaps some light monsoonal moisture wrapping in around the high to our south may generate iso to sct t- storms Thurs afternoon/eve everywhere but Zones 422/425. We'll have to watch this day to see if confidence in sct coverage increases enough to warrant a Red Flag Warning for any zones...chances are about 50/50 at this juncture. A quick analysis of NAMNest forecast soundings reveals a continued dry t-storm regime Thurs with inverted-Vs, steep/dry-adiabatic low-level lapse rates in excess of 9-10 degF/km, solid DCAPE (downdraft instability) of 1,200 to 2,000 J/kg, and average PWATs/low wind shear both trending higher as you head SE into the Bear Lake area closer to the better monsoon moisture, so lightning and gusty/erratic outflow winds will be the main concerns. An iso strong/severe cell cannot be ruled out. All of this said, there is hope! By next Mon (but esp Tue), models are bringing in a much more organized surge of monsoon moisture as the srn high pressure center shifts NE and intensifies/amplifies just SE of our forecast area, potentially knocking out the critical RHs and bringing a more widespread chance of t-storms each afternoon/eve from that point forward. This high will serve to "block" building longwave troughing along the Pacific Coast and a low pressure center just NW of Seattle, with flow throughout the column turning more S/SW supporting that influx of moisture. 500mb height cluster analysis suggests the intensifying influence of the high will be a much bigger dominating force over SE ID than this blocked trough, so aside from the increased moisture, the "big picture" pattern still doesn't look to change much. It's a bit too early to speculate on the PWAT/CWR response next week, and overall forecast confidence is moderate at this time. Expect heat to intensify again as well Sun/Mon/potentially Tue with MaxTs lighting up on the ECMWF EFI (Extreme Forecast Index), potentially making another run at 100 degrees for many lower elevation locales. - KSmith AIR STAGNATION... The accumulation of smoke from distant fires in NE California, SRN Oregon, and SE Washington as well as fires in the CNTRL Idaho mountains may produce moderate to unhealthy air quality conditions across portions of SE Idaho as the flow aloft continues to advect smoke from these fires east into our area. && .PIH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. &&
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE POCATELLO ID
642 AM MDT WED JUL 14 2021
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0545 PM HAIL ASHTON 44.07N 111.44W
07/13/2021 E1.50 INCH FREMONT ID PUBLIC
NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF 10TH ST AND ID-47.
PHOTOS AND VIDEOS SUBMITTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
WITH LARGEST STONES ESTIMATED AT PING PONG
BALL SIZE. ADDITIONAL PUBLIC REPORT/PHOTO OF
QUARTER TO HALF DOLLAR SIZE HAIL SEVERAL
BLOCKS AWAY. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR.
&&
KSMITHPRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE POCATELLO ID
646 AM MDT WED JUL 14 2021
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0543 PM HAIL ASHTON 44.08N 111.46W
07/13/2021 M1.00 INCH FREMONT ID TRAINED SPOTTER
NORTHWEST EDGE OF ASHTON. TIME ESTIMATED
BASED ON RADAR.
&&
KSMITHPRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT...SUMMARY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE POCATELLO ID
705 AM MDT WED JUL 14 2021
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0543 PM HAIL ASHTON 44.08N 111.46W
07/13/2021 M1.00 INCH FREMONT ID TRAINED SPOTTER
NORTHWEST EDGE OF ASHTON. TIME ESTIMATED
BASED ON RADAR.
0545 PM HAIL ASHTON 44.07N 111.44W
07/13/2021 E1.50 INCH FREMONT ID PUBLIC
NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF 10TH ST AND ID-47.
PHOTOS AND VIDEOS SUBMITTED VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
WITH LARGEST STONES ESTIMATED AT PING PONG
BALL SIZE. ADDITIONAL PUBLIC REPORT/PHOTO OF
QUARTER TO HALF DOLLAR SIZE HAIL SEVERAL
BLOCKS AWAY. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR.
0556 PM HAIL 1 E ASHTON 44.07N 111.42W
07/13/2021 M1.00 INCH FREMONT ID TRAINED SPOTTER
DIME TO QUARTER SIZE HAIL REPORTED.
&&
KSMITHThe national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
1 wildfire. Local standard time, as filed.
A 342 acre fire was detected July 14th 15 miles southeast of Burley. The fire burned timber, grass, and brush. Aerial resources utilized with 100 personnel on the fire.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Idaho in 2021Every state in 2021This day in weather historyWarnings in Idaho, July 2021
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 973900.