A U.S. Forest Service crew boss has reached a plea deal in connection to the 2001 deaths of four Washington firefighters.

Ellreese Daniels, 47, was scheduled to stand trial next week on four counts of involuntary manslaughter and seven counts of making false statements to investigators for allegedly making decisions that led to the deaths of the firefighters as they were trapped by the Thirtymile Fire near Wenatchee.

However, Daniels pleaded guilty on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane to making false statements to federal investigators, which is a federal misdemeanor.

It’s one of the first cases where a fire incident commander was charged criminally for decisions that led to the deaths of firefighters.

Fire crews in southwest Idaho have already responded to the first wildfire of the 2008 season. Bureau of Land Management firefighters battled a 30-acre grass and brush fire four miles south of the Swan Falls dam Sunday. Investigators say the blaze was caused by a campfire.

BLM officials say despite a steady dose of winter snows, many rangeland areas are currently very dry. Light spring rains and dead vegetation from last year have created dry conditions on land the agency manages across southwest Idaho. Agency officials are urging campers to use caution and care with campfires under the current conditions.

Defense attorneys have told a federal judge in Spokane that a last-minute plea deal is unlikely in the case of a U.S. Forest Service crew boss charged in the 2001 deaths of four Washington firefighters.

Ellreese Daniels, 47, will likely stand trial May 5 on four counts of involuntary manslaughter for allegedly making decisions that led to the deaths of the firefighters as they were trapped by the Thirtymile Fire near Wenatchee.

During a pre-trial hearing, Daniels’ public defender said that her client will not accept prosecutors’ offer of pleading guilty to a felony to avoid going to trial.

The trial is expected to last at least a month.

The head of the Idaho Department of Lands is asking lawmakers to boost salaries for those who are hired by the state to battle forest fires. 

In making his pitch to legislative budget writers on Friday, Lands Director George Bacon (pictured at left) says base pay rates for firefighters hired each year by the department are 36 percent lower than wages paid by federal agencies.  He adds that federal pay rates have kept pace with the cost of inflation over the last 15 years, while state salaries have lagged. 

The agency’s scale now pays entry-level wildland firefighters $7.59 an hour, compared with $11.34 paid by federal agencies.  Bacon’s plan would increase state pay to $10.65 an hour.

No injuries were reported following Sunday morning’s explosion at the wastewater treatment plant in north Lewiston.

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Just months after Idaho suffered through its worst fire season ever, Gov. Butch Otter and the Idaho Legislature are hoping to strengthen measures to minimize both the financial and physical impacts wildfires could have in the future.

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Idaho had 3,100 square miles burned by wildfire last year, the most of any state in the country. According to officials at the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center, nearly 80,000 wildfires torched some 14,000 square miles and over 5,000 buildings last year.

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Investigators believe an electrical failure is to blame for Tuesday’s house fire in Lewiston’s Normal Hill area.  Fire crews responded to the blaze at 931 11^th Avenue just before 9:30 AM and spent an hour knocking down flames that caused an estimated $100,000 in damage to the home’s basement, first, and second floors.  No one was at home at the time of the fire, which prompted closure of several blocks in the area for a couple of hours.