We reported earlier this week that a wildfire in southern Idaho posed a threat to the pilot training range used by Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, but the base’s fire chief, Cliff Lewis, says there’s currently no threat to the training ranges from the still-burning fire. SrA. Megan Lyon reports that two large wildfires caused by lightning strikes combined into one massive fire, burning more than 572,000 square miles in southern Idaho. Lewis noted that the wildfire never came closer than 35 miles of the main base, but it did come within five miles of the Juniper Butte training range. Base aircraft are flying above 10,000 feet in some areas of the training airspace to stay out of the way of firefighting aircraft.
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach a four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.