Community Fire Meeting Held in Sanpete County
Aug 9, 2018, 10:44 PM | Updated: 10:45 pm
MOUNT PLEASANT, Utah – People go to school to learn something new. For Tom and Graciela Meyers, they wanted to learn about the wildfire burning close to their home.
“We’re here just to make sure we know all of the information,” said Tom Meyers.
Community fire meeting
They were among nearly a hundred people who came to North Sanpete High School Thursday evening to listen to fire managers talk about the latest on the Hill Top Fire and the Coal Hollow Fire burning in Sanpete County.
The Meyers live in Sanpete County, near Indianola, where the Hill Top Fire has forced plenty of people to evacuate.
“Nature has its own behavior and we have to be prepared,” said Graciela Meyers.
Dave Vining talking to residents
During the fire meeting, fire managers said the Hill Top Fire has burned more than 1,700 acres but is now 61 percent contained.
Evacuations for the Hill Top Fire are expected to be lifted Friday at 10 a.m.
Fire managers also say the fire behavior is actually doing well and should be out in a couple of days.
Sanpete County Sheriff Brian Nielson
“About two days, maybe a day and a half, and we’ll be able to call that a hundred percent contained,” said Dave Vining, who is a planning operations manager with the Great Basin Fire Team Four.
The bigger concern heading into Friday is the Coal Hollow Fire.
It’s also burning in Sanpete County and is now more than 17,000 acres with zero percent containment.
Related: Families Evacuated As Coal Hollow Fire Grows
Evacuations are still in place for the Scofield and Soldier Summit areas.
Resident looking at a fire map
“There are power lines that feed a lot of cities and towns, there are railroad tracks that get used I think up to six times a day, and there are houses in there,” said Vining.
The Coal Hollow Fire gained nearly 10,000 acres in size in one day to the point where a Type I fire team will start fighting it Sunday morning.
That means more fire crews and more federal resources.
For the Meyers and everyone else who came to the meeting, they just hope all the fires will be put out soon.
“It’s something that we can expect to happen,” said Graciela Meyers.
