Larry and Kinuyo Camp woke early Thursday morning in their Southeast Boise home to a dark sky lit by the blue lights of emergency vehicles and the orange and red hues of a brush fire that rapidly encroached overnight.
The Plex Fire that started near South Eyele Avenue and East Plexi Court at around 6 p.m. Wednesday had grown from 20 acres to 350 acres by 8 a.m. Thursday, according to Jared Jablonski, mitigation education specialist with the Bureau of Land Management’s Boise bureau.
The Camps had been monitoring the fire late into the night. By 11 p.m. Wednesday, fire personnel had the Plex Fire at 80% containment, and the family thought perhaps they could rest easy.
“We went to bed thinking, ‘OK, we should fine,’ ” Larry Camp told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “And then we wake up and the world’s on fire.”
Sometime overnight, a wind shift began pushing the fire west toward the Boise River canyon near Lucky Peak Lake.
The fire then began moving toward some scattered homes and subdivisions in that area, including the Bonneville Pointe subdivision along East Columbia Road, where the Camps live, and the Sunny Ridge and Painted Ridge subdivisions.
Kinuyo Camp stepped outside after they woke and saw a parade of cars leaving the subdivision. She told her husband to pack. At around 6:15 a.m., an Ada County Sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door and told them to evacuate, the Camps said. They left just 15 minutes later.
They took a day’s worth of clothes, some photo albums and a couple of computers. Then they turned the sprinklers on in their yard.
“We have no idea when we can go back,” Larry Camp said. “I figure we’ll wait until the end of the work day and see what happens. I’m more worried about whether I should book a hotel now. I’m sure everyone else in these subdivisions are thinking the same thing.”
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He said they saw about 20-30 emergency vehicles in the area assisting with the fire, including the Boise and Meridian fire departments and the BLM.
The Camps pulled their son, who attends Les Bois Junior High School, out of classes for the day.
The Boise School District had sent out a notice early Thursday morning that, as of 7:30 a.m., the school didn’t have power. Neither did Trail Wind Elementary School. By 9 a.m., power had been restored to Trail Wind, and by 11 a.m., power had been restored to Les Bois, according to emails from the school district.
The school district said all outdoor activities would be moved inside for the day because of the poor air quality from the wildfire smoke.
“We understand that the current conditions are very unpleasant … ” the school district said.
Larry Camp, who has a background in the military, said he’s used to picking up and leaving suddenly. His wife, however, didn’t have as much peace of mind.
“I’m hopeful the house will be fine,” Larry Camp said.
The couple work at the same company, a vendor for Micron that makes patterns for semiconductor wafers, a process called electron-beam lithography, off of Federal Way. Micron told the Statesman by email that it’s communicating with the Boise Fire Department and monitoring the situation near its headquarters campus in Southeast Boise closely.
The company said in a statement at about 11 a.m. that there was no threat to the Micron campus, and operations at the site are normal.
“Our focus is on our team members and the surrounding community,” the company said. “Out of an abundance of caution, team members who are able to work from home today may do so.”
The BLM hopes to have the fire contained between 3 and 5 p.m. Thursday and controlled between 6 and 8 p.m. Friday, according to Jablonski. Contained means a line has been created around the fire and is expected to stop the spread.
Statesman reporters Sally Krutzig and Becca Savransky contributed.
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