Oct. 25—Teresa Selby knows the terror of driving away from her home with flames edging closer and the blessing of returning with everything untouched.

A native of Orofino, Selby understood she was moving to an area prone to wildfires when she and her late husband, Craig Selby, relocated in 2008 to a forested canyon along the Clearwater River near Lenore.

The retired Boeing employees wanted to be near her parents in Orofino. The hardship that goes with that choice has been particularly clear in the last four years.

The Bedrock Fire in 2023, the Gwen Fire in 2024 and the Milemarker 25 this year all burned dangerously close to her house.

Each time, similar thoughts cycled through her head, Selby said.

"You are watching fire burn around your place and you are just praying for a shield of protection and that's the only thing that's keeping your place from burning to the ground," she said. "You get into your car and you have to drive away because you've been evacuated and you don't know what you're coming back to. When you come back and you find your property has been spared, but the black area is just across the county road from your home, you feel very blessed."

Those feelings are part of what prompted her husband to begin drawing up plans for a new Lenore fire district before he succumbed to pancreatic cancer in February.

Selby is stepping in where he left off, to help form the district to protect homes in her neighborhood and surrounding areas.

The district would encompass about 87,000 acres. It would be located along the Clearwater River canyon starting east of Myrtle and extending upriver to Peck including Cherrylane, reaching adjacent areas such as a portion of the canyon along Giffords-Reubens Road.

She and other backers of the district are gathering the 25 signatures of property owners within the district required to get the measure on the ballot. If they succeed, and meet other requirements, the district will go before registered voters in the proposed district May 18.

"I picked it up to carry it forward for his legacy," she said. "It has grown with such magnitude and such support from the community."

While the district hasn't yet been established, the research Selby and her husband completed is already helping other Nez Perce County residents.

About 70% of the geographic area of Nez Perce County is outside fire districts, said Nez Perce County Commission Chairman Joe Gish.

Until Selby and her husband began pursuing a new one, the steps to form them were unclear, she said.

Gish supports the effort and would like to see even more new districts, including one in the Waha area where he resides. Lewiston City Councilor Kassee Forsmann, Gish, Selby and area fire chiefs have been meeting regularly for about 10 months seeking ways to strengthen fire protection in Nez Perce County.

Even though no new fire districts have formed yet, Gish said better communication between existing fire districts, the Idaho Department of Lands and the U.S. Forest Service prevented the spread of a number of fires this year that had the potential to be every bit as destructive as the Gwen Fire.

That fire destroyed 25 homes and covered over 28,800 acres.

The group published a pamphlet, developed an interactive map where residents can enter their addresses to learn what fire protection they have and is hosting an informational meeting this week.

In parts of Nez Perce County outside Lewiston's city limits, different agencies have distinct roles when they respond to fires, Gish said.

The U.S. Forest and the Idaho Department of Lands fight wildfires burning in woods, grasslands and farm fields, prioritizing protecting homes, businesses, barns, garages and shops, he said.

"They are not certified to fight structure fires, so once a structure is on fire they are not trained or insured to fight to save the structure," Gish said.

Fire districts are responsible for extinguishing building fires, he said.

In areas like Selby's rural Lenore neighborhood outside fire districts, Selby said, every wildfire raises concerns not just about losing homes but of higher insurance rates, neither of which she has avoided so far.

One way she mitigates those worries is by taking as many precautions as possible where she lives.

Her home is built from metal and sits on a large lot of gravel and dirt without any trees or bushes. The only plants near the house grow in pots. And the gutters have screens on top that allow rain to flow in, but prevent leaves and other debris that could turn into fire fuel from collecting there.

A fire district would make her and her neighbors' homes even safer, Selby said.

Response times to homes in the area would decrease, making it more likely homes will be saved in wildfires and potentially stabilize insurance premiums, she said.

The district would have property tax revenue for expenses such as buildings, equipment, training and protective gear for firefighters. The goal is to have two stations, one in Lenore and another at Cherrylane.

Selby hopes the district will be online before the 2027 fire season. She's not eager to relive her encounters with wildfires of the last four years.

Of the three, the Bedrock Fire was the scariest for her, Selby said. At 11,000 acres, it destroyed three homes and wasn't nearly as large as the Gwen Fire. But the Bedrock Fire burned more intensely in the trees and came closer to her home.

She didn't realize they were in an evacuation area until she called the sheriff's office and asked if they were supposed to be there. The dispatcher told them to leave but didn't provide instructions about which route to take.

She and her husband headed upriver on back roads on the north side of the river. They reached safety after driving separately through trees that were fully engulfed and smoke so thick they couldn't see the road that ran along a 600-foot cliff above the river.

The Gwen Fire brought different stresses, Selby said.

Early on she and her husband decided to go to the station of the Big Canyon Fire District in Lenore. Both were district volunteers then. He was a firefighter and she handled records.

The Big Canyon Fire District has another station in Peck and doesn't cover their property where the Selbys had a large tanker truck with a pump system they could have used to defend their home.

"We were concerned the downtown area of Lenore would burn with the post office and community center," she said. "And right in that little pocket is the major population area."

They checked on their home intermittently where ash was falling, but most of the time didn't have any assurance it was still standing.

Even though volunteer firefighters stood ready at the station, emergency dispatch never sent them to a location, a step that's required by protocol for them to respond, Selby said.

To this day, many of them wonder why, in a situation where resources were so strained, they were never summoned, she said.

After a reprieve in 2025, this year, Selby, now widowed, watched from her porch in July as an unsettlingly familiar scene unfolded in the U.S. Highway 12 at mile marker 25 by the Lenore rest stop.

She was the second person to call the fire after she spotted a huge plume of smoke. Soon helicopters arrived flying so close she could see the pilots in the cockpits.

"It sounds like a war zone," she said. "I was less than 500 feet away and there's two helicopters one right after the other, dipping and dumping. I didn't dare come out from underneath that covered roof."

Even though she was worried, the quick response left her hopeful. The coordination of the federal, state and local crews seemed to be better than it was during the Gwen Fire.

A fire crew member stood on her property most of the time. He had a view that was different from those on the fire scene, helping direct the air response and ground crews pumping water onto the dumping water on the fire from the ground.

No matter what happens with the proposed fire district in coming months, Selby is committed to staying in her rural community, aware of its risks.

"It's a lifestyle that we know, that other people don't know or couldn't appreciate," she said. "I've lived in the city and the country. The freedom that you have in your own backyard and the close-knit community where truly people do stand with you and would do anything for each other, you can't find that anywhere."

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