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We had a massive wind-storm in the northwest. It was like a Category 1 hurricane without rain for sustained wind speeds in many places. It was also from the northeast/east and that is not our usual path of wind.

A perfect storm in a typical dry summer here so almost all of the fires were caused by damage to the power lines.

Southeast Idaho had winds from 47 to 77 MPH that blew from 5 PM until well after midnight. Trees in my area were shredded or uprooted. Power poles were pushed over causing power outages. My neighbor had a pile of shredded branches on the front (south facing) lawn. A tree service company was out with the wood chipper to deal with the branches this morning.

The wind blowing out of Montana and over the Bitterroot Mountains into North Idaho on Monday was fierce. It took down two big pine trees on our neighbor's property and then fell toward our house. Trees are down all over the place. A huge pine came down on the Pro Shop at our country club. The waves on Hayden Lake were up to five feet high and smashed a LOT of docks and broke many loose.

It is amazing that the winds snap trees off 10 to 50 feet above the ground. The winds were so bad we got in the car and drove to places without trees, staying away for a few hours. Our power was out for about 12 hours and there were a couple hundred outages in our area.

When winds are that high, power lines "gallop" and touch, causing sparks which set fires. There are a LOT of fires all over Washington and Idaho states from the wind storm. There's a big one in Blanchard about 22 miles from us right now.