A conflagration dubbed the “Lava Fire” has consumed at least 2,493 acres and prompted evacuations across Gem County, Idaho, KTVB reports on just one of several infernos raging across the Potato State but one whose name possibly implies a greater danger than a simple wildfire.
We don’t have information just yet specifically on why it’s called the Lava Fire, but based on the ad hoc system used in the United States – as detailed in this blog post by firefighting command management software vendor RedZone – the naming typically comes on the fly by a dispatcher and is drawn from a nearby geographic feature. So we’ll hazard that, Idaho being a state with numerous active/dormant volcanic features, the “lava” refers to the site of an ancient eruption near where the fire started rather than it having been ignited by actual molten lava pouring out of a fissure.
It certainly works better than the “Camp Fire,” the now-second deadliest inferno of the 21st century that laid waste to the city of Paradise, California in 2018, killing 85 people trapped by the wind-driven flames. Truth be told very few if any had to be aware of the name at the time but it still kind of sounds like people roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories than a killer fire. The name simply came from the dirt path nearest to where it started: Camp Creek Road in Pulga, California.
The other active fires listed on KTVB’s live blog page include the Boulder, Snag, Dollar, Table, Red Rock, Black Eagle, and Goat Fires, the last one sounding kind of vaguely unthreatening too.