Lightning Sparks Wildfire in Tooele County

GRANTSVILLE, Utah – A lightning strike sparked a fire in Grantsville, Monday night.

The strike happened around 10 pm and spread along Ellerbeck Road.

Local firefighters worked all night through Tuesday to stop this fire from spreading to two homes and two businesses, a lime and salt plant.

“There’s a push now on the fire towards the second residence that doesn’t have the dozier line, so they’re concerned about that one. That’s probably our number one concern right now,” said Wasatch Front Fire Management Officer Dave Vickers with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands.

 

Firefighters working hard through the night after lightning started this wildfire near Grantsville/trying to protect 2 houses, 2 biz. I’ll have a live report with the latest info at noon on @KSL5TV & @kslbrowser50. #EllerbeckFire

(Pardon vert vid…I caught this pickup on IG) pic.twitter.com/b30PXMW44D

— Caitlin Burchill (@newsyCaitlin) July 10, 2018

Despite their overnight efforts, Vicker says the fire spread quickly because of the lack of manpower.

The five-acre fire burned through more than one-thousand acres fast. He says at this point it’s too early to have an exact acreage and containment number.

Thankfully, Vickers says some resources from the Box Canyon Fire, just over the hill, were able to be freed up early Tuesday morning. “A lot of times location of where resources are can play a big factor because the biggest thing we are dealing with is time. How soon can we get it? That’s what we were playing with all night long,” he said.

While the fire died down Tuesday morning, firefighters are preparing for the burn period, when the fire conditions get more dangerous in the afternoon. Vicker says that’s when the fire will have the potential to take off.

So far, we’re told there have been no evacuations.