Firefighters make progress in Utah

WHITEROCKS, Utah — A deadly wildfire grew to more than 54 square miles Monday in northeastern Utah, but firefighters aided by light winds and retardant dropped from aircraft made “outstanding progress” in keeping the blaze away from homes, authorities said.

About two dozen people in this town, 100 miles east of Salt Lake City, were allowed to return home. Crews, meanwhile, maintained fire lines near buildings in the sparsely populated area.

But away from homes and other buildings, the strategy mostly was to let the fire burn dead trees in Ashley National Forest in Uintah and Duchesne counties, said Jay Esperance of the U.S. Forest Service, which is in charge of tactics on what’s called the Neola North fire.

Since Friday, when three people were killed, the fire has burned nearly 35,000 acres, about one-third in the national forest and the rest on a mix of private and public lands and the Uintah and Ouray Indian reservations, said Marc Mullenix, an incident commander.

The cost so far: $1.6 million, half of it tied to helicopters and aircraft dropping water and retardant, he said.

The fire was 10 percent contained by Monday evening. Temperatures hit the 90s with humidity less than 20 percent.

“We’ve made outstanding progress,” Esperance said.

People in a handful of communities were evacuated over the weekend, but Whiterocks residents were allowed to return.

Arlyn Wyasket, his pregnant wife, Shelly, their 5-month-old daughter, Ebby, and Wyasket’s father, William, were pleased to get home. They had evacuated to a nearby motel.

“It’s been hard on all of us,” Wyasket said Monday. “The money’s been real hard. It was a relief to come back home. It will be good to not have to eat out all the time.”

The fire, fed by dry pinon pine trees, knocked down at least 100 power poles and scorched roads.

Mullenix said at least a dozen structures have burned to the ground, mostly on Indian land, but he didn’t know if they were homes or barns.

On Monday, Marcus Perry, 23, was working outside his parents’ Tridell home, with a large plume of smoke visible in the distance.

Perry, a Lapoint-Tridell firefighter, said a lot of people don’t want to leave their homes even when evacuation orders go out. His parents left for a few hours Saturday and then returned, he said.

“It’s happened before,” Perry said of wildfires in the area. “Once you’ve seen one … it’s not too much to worry about.”

More than 700 firefighters were summoned Monday from across the country, up from 400 the day before, and more were expected today. The Utah National Guard sent 100 people to keep roads closed and assist in law enforcement away from the fire.