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."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.