Idaho wildfire pinned on cyclist who stopped to poop and burned the evidence

The Hull Fire in Boise, Idaho.
(Image credit: Facebook.com/BoiseFireDepartment)

Only you can prevent wildfires — by not turning the great outdoors into your own giant bathroom, then trying to cover it up by burning the toilet paper evidence.

An unnamed bicyclist in Boise, Idaho, did just that on Wednesday, and firefighters say an ember flew into dry grass, sparking a fire than burned 73 acres in the foothills. The cyclist told authorities that he thought it was the right thing to do because it wouldn't be littering, the Boise Fire Dispatch Center said (for those who are curious, they also said human waste needs to be buried or removed from fire-prone areas). "I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go," Carrie Bilbao, spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Land Management, told KTVB of Boise. But, "in these fuel types, it's not a good idea."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.