Winds leave path of destruction in Western Idaho

The anemometer atop the Bureau of Land Management fire tower on Lookout Mountain in Valley County clocked Monday evening's wind at 71 miles per hour.

Then it broke.

"They estimated the wind at 80 to 90 mph after it broke the instrument," said Valerie Mills, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boise.

Another BLM instrument measured gusts at 65 miles per hour near Silver City.

The powerful winds that pushed a cloud of dust, tumbleweeds and other debris hundreds of feet into the air caused fires, traffic accidents and property damage from the Oregon state line to Mountain Home. The moist cold front moving in from the Northwest slammed into hot dry air hanging over the Valley about 6:30 p.m.

Several thousand Idaho Power customers lost power Monday and at least two major crashes were associated with the storm, including an eight-car pileup on Interstate 84 in Canyon County.

Idaho State Troopers responded to a crash at about 6:45 p.m., after a Christmas Valley, Ore., man careened into stopped traffic just west of Nampa.

The man's Ford F350 pulling a trailer hit a utility trailer, which caused a chain reaction crash. No one was hurt, but the Oregon driver was cited for careless driving.

Another crash on I-84 about 6:30 p.m. happened when high winds blew dust and smoke from a brush fire over the highway.

A Nampa man slowed his Mercedes just before it was hit by a GMC truck. The driver of the truck then hit a Ford 800 truck driven by a California man. Two people were taken to a Nampa hospital with minor injuries.

Near Mountain Home on Tuesday, BLM and National Forest crews continued working on a 500-acre fire that exploded to nearly 1,500 acres as the windstorm blew through the area north of Mountain Home east of Highway 20 near Hot Creek Road.

The Knudsen Fire was reported to the Boise Dispatch Center at 8:12 p.m. as high winds with active fire behavior made the blaze difficult to contain. Seven engines and two dozers responded, along with one Forest Service Engine and several Mountain Home agencies.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated.

David Kennard: 377-6436