Gold Pan Fire Grows, Two New Fires Absorbed into the Complex

The Gold Pan Fire Complex near the Idaho-Montana border is getting more difficult to fight as two new fires were absorbed into the main blaze this week.

"The Gold Pan Fire Complex right now consists of four fires," said incident management team spokeswoman Glenda Scott. "The Gold Pan Fire which started in late July is 17,219 acres. The Goat Fire, which has been part of the complex for quite some time and holds at 13 acres. Then yesterday we added the Thirteen Fire, which is south of the main Gold Pan Fire, it's just at one acre, sitting within the area where the 2012 Mustang Complex burned. The one that we are putting the most effort into right now though is the Nez Peak Fire.

The new Nez peak Fire is at 25 acres already and threatens to expand north and east toward Montana. Altogether the four fires occupy 17,258 acres and have cost around 6 million dollars to fight.