SEVIER COUNTY, Utah — Firefighters are facing fatigue after the Monroe Canyon fire doubled in size with another round of evacuations.
As of Friday, the fire was around 11,000 acres and by Sunday, it reached almost 21,000 acres with just 13% containment.
“We were pretty spread thin last night, it was a pretty rough night. As far as we can tell, we're holding what we got, but it's still pretty dicey,” said Matt Call, Operations Section Chief with Great Basin Team 3.
Call walked the public through the trouble areas Sunday morning, with Magleby being one of them.
“That was pretty dicey. We're still going in there and assessing. There was a fair amount of heat going through there,” Call said, "we do have crews actively accessing that, assessing damage, taking trees to hazard trees down.”
“As far as the fire damage, fire damage that has happened and will happen is done now. It's just kind of picking up the pieces and putting out some of the smoldering masses so we don't get any more damage in there,” Call added.
The fire continued to push towards Porters and Long Flat, where evacuations are still in place.
Call said they had to do a special operation in attempt to control the fire.
“The fire is going to come and hit those areas regardless. So, if we take that heat out and remove those fuels, it doesn't hit us with such a vengeance. And so, we had a fairly successful operation,” he said.
The other concern is monitoring spot fires.
“There's going to be more out there as night happens and it gets cooler and more humid, the spot fires kind of lay down. And we have a drone, basically that has an infrared camera, and it's going to fly out there. It's flying out looking for those spots. And we have those working till about three in the morning,” Call said.
Call added that on Saturday there were at least eight aircrafts in the air working to spread fire retardant.
“We put retardant down on this west side of the fire, on that ridge line I was showing you, kind of above Monroe Canyon, to hold that fire to prevent it from progressing to the west. So, we laid some retardant down there, as well as a lot of helicopter work on the east side, around those communities,” he said.
Call said there have been no catastrophic failures yet.
According to the U.S. Forest Service, the current areas under evacuation include the following:
- Magleby
- Monroe Meadows
- Cove Mountain
- Elk Country Cabins
- Long Flat
- Big Lake
- Porters
- Paulsen’s through Bear Valley and around Mormon Peak
For updates, residents are encouraged to check Utah Fire Info and U.S. Forest Service social media pages.
