Update: Fire burning southeast of Boise contained after nearing homes; Idaho 21 reopens

A change of winds caused a fire southeast of Boise to spread overnight, causing significant damage to the terrain.

The Plex Fire had grown to 350 acres by 8 a.m. Thursday, said Jared Jablonski, mitigation education specialist with the Bureau of Land Management’s Boise bureau.

BLM said it had contained the fire as of 3:40 p.m. Thursday. Contained means a control line has been completed around the fire and is expected to stop the spread.

The brush fire started near South Eyele Avenue and East Plexi Court around 6 p.m. Wednesday evening. The fire began fairly small at 20 acres, but had grown to 250 acres by 11 p.m.

Officials closed Idaho 21 between South Technology Way and East Warm Springs to allow fire crews to access the area, according to the Ada County Sheriff’s Office. The highway was reopened by 4 p.m.

Fire personnel had the Plex Fire at 80% containment by 11 p.m. Wednesday, Jablonski said. Then, a wind shift began pushing the fire to the west toward the Boise River canyon near Lucky Peak Lake.

“It did get into the canyon here — real steep, rocky terrain,” Jablonski said. “And sometime this morning, we had the wind switch to down canyon and the fire got up again and started making runs down the canyon.”

Jablonski said the fire then came on top of the flats in that area and began moving toward the nearby subdivisions. That area includes some scattered homes as well as the Bonneville Pointe, Sunny Ridge and Painted Ridge subdivisions. No mandatory evacuations were ordered, but Ada County Sheriff’s Office deputies going door-to-door advised some residents to leave their homes, Jablonski said.

Over 600 customers in the area were without power as of 8:45 a.m.

The fire burned through a “fairly major power line” in that area and left about 1,600 customers without power just before 6 a.m., Idaho Power spokesperson Sven Berg told the Statesman. As of about 8:10 a.m., power was restored to around 1,000 customers.

Idaho Power was working to restore power to the remaining 600 customers but wasn’t sure when that will be, Berg said.

“We’re working as fast as we can, but we have to work safely,” he said.

The Boise School District also sent out a notice early Thursday morning that, as of 7:30 a.m., two schools didn’t have power: Les Bois Junior High and Trail Wind Elementary schools. Before 9 a.m., power had been restored to Trail Wind. By 10 a.m., it was restored at Les Bois.

District administration said in a note staff members were “closely monitoring” the wildfire affecting southeast Boise and that the district has emergency procedures in place at all of the district schools if necessary.