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Happy Wednesday, Meridian!
Today is the warm-up act. The forecast lands somewhere in the mid-90s depending on which office you ask, and then Thursday goes for triple digits, so if you've got anything outdoors on the list, today is the day you actually do it. The smoke advisory is still up through Friday afternoon, which is its own kind of persistence.
In here: a vehicle burglary in the Scentsy lot that ended with a dog, Meridian's only brewery landing on a statewide growth list, the fire that's putting all this smoke over your house, a correction about Friday's movie that we owe you, and a trivia question about a racetrack. Let's get into it.
In this issue
🚓 A witness called in a car break-in at Scentsy. A K9 finished the conversation.
🍺 Loose Screw Beer Co. makes BoiseDev's list of Idaho's fastest-growing companies
🔥 The Tartar Fire is past 138,000 acres and about to merge with a second fire
🎥 Correction: Friday's Sparklight Movie Night is Super Mario Galaxy, not Shrek
🎲 Board games tonight, trivia Thursday, Magic pre-release Saturday
🏎 Trivia: how far back does Meridian Speedway go?
🧠 Trivia: Meridian Speedway on E. Franklin has been turning laps longer than most of the town has existed in its current form. What year did the first race run there? (Answer at the bottom.)
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This week's list is heavy on air conditioning, which feels correct.
Wednesday, Aug 5
Open Board Game Night at Phoenix Fire Games — 7–10 p.m., 94 E. Fairview Ave. Bring your own or borrow off the shelf. Indoors, which is the whole point this week. Details · Add to calendar
Thursday, Aug 6
Game Night Live Trivia at VR1 Arcade — 7–9 p.m., 3131 E. Lanark St., Suite 100. Trivia in an arcade, which solves the "what do we do between rounds" problem. Details · Add to calendar
Friday, Aug 7
Sparklight Movie Night: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — Settlers Park, 3245 N. Meridian Rd. The inflatable screen goes up by 7 p.m., movie starts at dusk. Free. Concession stand and a kettle corn cart on site, or bring a picnic; no alcohol. One correction we owe you: our July 31 issue said this Friday was Shrek. It isn't — Shrek played back in June. The city's schedule has Super Mario Galaxy for the 7th. Sorry to anyone who promised a kid an ogre. Schedule · Add to calendar
Happiness Showcase: Preschool Open House — 5:30–7 p.m. at The Learning Experience – Meridian. An actual look-around-the-classrooms open house rather than a sales pitch in a lobby, if you're sorting out fall childcare. Details · Add to calendar
Saturday, Aug 8
Magic: The Gathering — The Hobbit pre-release — noon–5 p.m. at Phoenix Fire Games, 94 E. Fairview Ave. Sealed pre-release, so you don't need to own a deck to show up. Details · Add to calendar
Tuesday, Aug 11
311 & Dirty Heads — Ford Idaho Center, Nampa. Our one out-of-town item this week, and only because half of Meridian buys tickets to that amphitheater anyway. Check the listing for door and set times. Details · Add to calendar
One more for the calendar: West Ada's first day is Wednesday, Aug 12 — one week from today.
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Today: Sunny, smoky and hot. The NWS point forecast for Meridian tops out near 97; the Boise-area forecast running Tuesday night had Wednesday closer to 94. Split the difference and plan for the mid-90s, and don't be shocked by 97. Overnight low somewhere around 58–62.
The rest of the week: Thursday is the actual peak — the Boise forecast is flirting with 100. Friday and Saturday stay in the upper 90s. There is no cold front on the board.
Air quality: The DEQ advisory runs through 2 p.m. Friday for Ada County and nine others, with the Air Quality Index forecast to hit Unhealthy. Open burning is prohibited. If you've got kids, asthma, or a few decades on you, keep the outdoor exertion short — and that goes double Thursday, when heat and smoke stack on each other.
A car break-in at Scentsy ended with a K9
Somebody in the Scentsy parking lot saw a vehicle burglary happening in real time and picked up the phone. That's the part worth noting.
Meridian Police arrived and started giving commands to the man they later identified as 38-year-old Camron Belcher. He didn't comply, and he ran. A police dog caught him. Belcher has been charged with burglary, resisting arrest and grand theft, and he was also wanted on unrelated warrants he's now been booked on.
Meridian's only brewery just made a statewide growth list
BoiseDev announced its 2026 Peak 43 honorees Tuesday — 43 Idaho companies ranked purely on revenue growth from 2022 to 2025 — and Loose Screw Beer Co. is on it.
If you've been downtown lately you've probably watched this happen without calling it growth: the original taproom at 1511 W. McMillan Rd., then the downtown brewery at 105 E. Carlton Ave. Loose Screw bills itself as Meridian's only craft beer brewery, and it now shares a list with construction firms, ad agencies and a bakery. The actual rankings stay sealed until the countdown gala on Oct. 8 at Boise Centre West, so nobody knows yet whether they're No. 43 or No. 1.
The fire putting all that smoke over your house is now bigger than Boise
We keep telling you the advisory is extended. Here's the thing doing it. The Tartar Fire north of Weiser hit an estimated 138,223 acres as of Tuesday morning and is still only 13% contained — up from about 107,000 acres over the weekend.
It now appears close to merging with the Fox Fire on the Oregon side, which has itself already merged in places with the Powder River Fire in Baker County. Together the three have burned more than 238,960 acres. A Level 3 "Go" evacuation order is in effect for a stretch of Washington County including areas north of Weiser High School. That's about 70 miles northwest of here, and it's why your patio furniture keeps getting a gray film on it.
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Trivia answer
Meridian Speedway ran its first race in 1951 — 75 summers ago.
The 10-acre site was designed and built with volunteer labor from people who lived here, and the Meridian Athletic Association ran it from 1951 until 1981. It has been doing double duty that whole time: a quarter-mile paved oval for the racing, and a show arena for the dairy cattle that gave Dairy Days its name. That combination is rare enough that the Speedway and Dairy Show Park Arena were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2024 — a grassroots community landmark that a town of 150,000-plus somehow never paved over.
How did we do today?
How did we do today?
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