A fire near the Juab County line burned over 2,200 acres as a result of high winds and warranted several evacuations shortly after it started on the afternoon of Saturday, August 24.

The fire started at approximately 1:30 p.m. near milepost 9 on SR-36, just southeast of Lofgreen. At the time of the fire, winds were high and the humidity was low, causing extreme fire danger and the potential for a new fire to spread quickly, according to Bucky Whitehouse, Tooele County Emergency Management director.

“Because of the south winds, the fire was pushed north from milepost 9 through Lofgreen and toward Faust Road,” Whitehouse said.

As of Tuesday morning, shortly before the Transcript Bulletin’s press time, the fire was reported at 50% contained. Crews will continue to make progress securing the fire line, and Wednesday, they will increase containment. Although the fire was probably human caused, it is still under investigation, according to Utah Fire Info.

On Saturday afternoon, shortly after the fire started, approximately seven homes, were evacuated and residents in the surrounding areas and nearby in Vernon were ready to evacuate.

“Technically, we all got the evacuation notice, but we could see that the fire was not close enough as of yet to actually evacuate,” said Bunny Cheatham, who lives in Vernon. “My husband is in the fire department and said if the winds stayed where they were, we were safe… By 7 p.m., I was wondering if I did need to [evacuate], and what my plan would be, but [I was concerned] first for my kids’ safety, and second of all for our animals, because I have a lot. We left our horse trailer hooked to the truck just in case.” 

In case of increased evacuations, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Vernon was set up with supplies and space for evacuees, but the church went unused, Cheatham said.

“Our firefighters worked hard to protect any structures, especially because it was so close to their own homes,” Cheatham commented.

Although firefighters did their best to stop the fire before it burned any structures, an outbuilding, haystack, shed, and farming equipment were burned near the area.

Later in the day, around 5:15 p.m., campers at Five Mile Pass were evacuated due to the rapid rate of spread. During the evacuation, a reverse 911 call was sent out to alert campers to leave the area.

“Winds were sustained at 25 miles per hour and gusting as high as 50 miles per hour [at that time],” Whitehouse said. “The fire was moving very fast and there were several hundred vehicles camping out there. We knew it was going to take some time to evacuate them and alert them. We knew if the fire got too close, it would create a risk that fire officials wanted to avoid.”

There was no evacuation center set up for those at Five Mile Pass.

Firefighters from Vernon, Rush Valley, Stockton, and Tooele County Fire Departments, as well as firefighters from the Bureau of Land Management and Juab County responded to the fire. Three airplanes and one helicopter also responded to drop fire retardant on the fire. While they were dropping retardant, SR-36 was closed in both directions for several hours.

“When the aircraft are working a fire, roads have to be shut down,” Whitehouse explained. “Regulations prevent them from actively working a fire if there’s a state road underneath them.”

SR-36 was also evacuated because of low visibility in the area, Whitehouse said.

There are currently over 100 firefighters working to contain and extinguish the fire and the Bureau of Land Management has taken over incident command, Whitehouse said.

No injuries have been reported.

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