CHALLIS, Idaho (AP) - The fire started early Oct. 4, destroying the Bureau of Land Management office on the edge of town within minutes.
Volunteer firefighters worked the blaze through the night. In the morning, Challis BLM Manager Todd Kuck began calling his 25 employees, saying they no longer had a place to work.
By that afternoon, state and federal investigators had arrived, combing the scene for any evidence of foul play. Reports of a loud bang when the fire began stoked rumors around the town of 1,000.
“There was talk that the Three Percenters had something to do with it,” said Custer County Sheriff Stu Lumpkin, referring to the radical patriot group opposed to federal overreach. The Idaho chapter of the group held a protest rally at the BLM office earlier this year.
Custer County, where 97 percent of land is owned by the federal government, easily could’ve been the latest hotspot for an escalating conflict around the West between land managers and anti-government militants such as Cliven and Ammon Bundy. But the opposite has happened since the fire, residents and officials say. The community has rallied to help their local BLM office, despite often sharp disagreements over who should control the land and how it should be managed.
Investigators soon determined the blaze was due to an electrical problem, to the relief of many. County commissioners met with BLM leaders to ensure the office wouldn’t be moved to Salmon or another city. Officials opened up the Community Event Center, so BLM employees could temporarily get back to work. Residents called Kuck and other BLM workers to see if there was anything they could do to help.
“We have a different culture and value system here,” said Challis Mayor Michael Barrett. “People reached out and said, ’Hey, how can we help you? Do you need office space?’ We react to things a little bit differently, because we’re such a small community.”
Farmers, ranchers and other Custer County residents don’t agree on much with the BLM or the Forest Service, which also maintains a Challis office. They don’t like when roads are blocked, or areas are closed seasonally to protect big game range. There have been dust-ups in the past over prescribed burns spreading onto private property, or vice versa, Lumpkin said.
Transferring federal lands to state and county control is a popular idea in Custer County. Under county management, the thinking goes, there could be selective logging, grazing, and new areas opened to mining. Barrett argues it would boost the struggling local economy, which saw hundreds laid off at the Thompson Creek molybdenum mine in recent years.
But that doesn’t mean residents want the BLM to leave anytime soon. The office is among the largest employers in Challis. Its employees are well-paid, and many have children in the local school district. People go to church with BLM employees; they see them at the grocery store and the post office. They’re friends and neighbors, Barrett said.
“You may have frustrations with the way things work, but it doesn’t mean you take it out on the individual people,” said Jolie Turek, who leads the county’s economic development office, and has a close friend who works for the BLM. “I’m just glad that, as a community, we were able to help them out. That’s what communities do.”
As rumors of possible arson traveled quickly around the community after the fire, Barrett said he consistently heard one response: “That better not have happened here.”
He said he knew only a handful of locals - none of them ranchers or farmers - who took part in the 3% of Idaho militia rally at the BLM office in February, shortly after the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon ended. The rally was peaceful, and the office stayed open that day. But Custer County residents generally weren’t big fans of the rally, or the Oregon occupation, Barrett said, despite agreeing with some of their principles.
“Are there people here who support what happened at Malheur? Sure. If I told you there weren’t you could probably walk out on the street and find somebody,” Barrett said. “But I think by and large the community doesn’t support things like that. We support working things out here. And when we can’t, we take it to our representatives, and the people we think can affect some change.”
Kuck, the BLM manager, wrote a guest column after the fire in the Challis Messenger. He said he felt “truly blessed” to live and work in Challis.
“While we sometimes disagree, this community understands that BLM employees are members of this community, and that means a great deal to us,” Kuck wrote. “While the near future will be challenging for our employees with the loss of our building, we are not going anywhere.”
The fire started in the shop area of the building, torching an all-terrain-vehicle, a forklift, motorcycles, rafts, and other tools and supplies, Kuck said. It moved into the roof, quickly spreading through the u-shaped office section of the structure.
Federal investigators told Lumpkin the bang was from an acetylene tank blowing open in the fire.
Officials still hope to recover some records, but almost everything else BLM employees used to manage nearly 800,000 acres of public lands was lost.
On Monday, Kuck and his staff continued to organize their temporary office space at the community center. Shelving and desks were ready to set up. Employees were still awaiting a shipment of new desktop computers.
In the coming months, the BLM will move to a different - but still temporary - office space. The likely destination is the city’s former middle school building, which also houses Challis City Hall and the Challis School District Office. It will be two to three years before the BLM can build something new, Kuck said.
“It’s important to have the BLM office here in Challis, so when there are issues, (residents) don’t have to travel somewhere else, or always talk to somebody on the phone,” Kuck said.
The owner of the burned building, longtime Challis resident Spencer Strand, said his insurance company is still examining specifics of what caused the blaze. The building was constructed 15 years ago, and would’ve lasted many more, he said.
After the fire, Strand, 75, said he complained to his wife about losing a steady source of income.
“And she said, ’Spencer, let’s not talk about money. Let’s talk about a beautiful building that’s gone. Let’s talk about 25 to 30 people who work there, their homes are here, their children go to our schools. They participate in volunteer efforts on behalf of the community. It’s not all about money.’”
“And with that, I apologized to her.”
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