At first, they looked like sparks.
The flashes of light floated in the air for a second and then extinguished. A few feet away, they would strike up again. Tiny, match-like bursts.
“There’s one,” a boy shouted. “Look over there! Right there!” a girl squealed.
In the dark, no one could really tell where they were pointing. But everyone knew they were seeing the same thing: fireflies.
It was the last tour of the summer season at Diane Garcia’s alfalfa farm in Utah County where — by some inimitable combination of tall grasses and marshy ground and dark skies — the unique bugs have taken up an unexpected residence. It’s a rarity to see them in the West. It’s even more unheard of in the dry deserts of Utah.
So about 50 people each night march through the mud on Garcia’s property just outside of Spanish Fork, which she opens for free, to see the glowing insect spectacle and find out if they are really here.
