FILLMORE, Utah — While residents in Fillmore are thankful that the rain is helping contain the Widemouth 2 Fire, they're now filling sandbags to prepare for potential floods.
There was a community watch event Thursday evening at Millard High School, a live stream of the meeting about 65 miles away in Richfield.
It took place while heavy rain fell outside.
Strong winds and dark clouds were the precursor to the downpour that began just after 6:00 PM.
Fortunately, it didn’t last long.
People in Fillmore and neighboring communities filled sandbags earlier this week in the event of flooding.
Meanwhile, crews using backhoes and bulldozers established barriers near streams in the area in case of flooding or debris flows.
If those communities can escape flooding through Friday, officials say things are looking a lot better moving into this weekend.
Katt Bernu is the Public Information Officer for the Widemouth 2 Fire.
She said so far, the monsoon weather is helping
“It’s adding a lot of moisture to the air, which takes out a lot of that dry heat that really fuels the fire activity," she said. "It is also adding moisture to the ground at the moment, that is helping to put out those ground flames and allowing crews to fight the fire more directly.”
“Because the ground is so scorched right now it can’t retain any water or any moisture.
So a lot of times that will come up and that’s where we kind of get those floods and that debris from. But it does help, again, kind of mitigate that extreme fire behavior.”
The communities near the Widemouth 2 Wildfire have been through a lot over the past two and a half weeks, including evacuations and dealing with lots of smoke.
